National Westminster Bank Public Limited Company · DRN-6021503

The complaint Mrs A complains that NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY (NatWest) didn’t treat her fairly when she asked for support with her mortgage. What happened Mrs A has a mortgage with NatWest. She borrowed around £127,000 over a 32 year term in 2017. The mortgage was set up on a repayment basis with an initial fixed rate for five years. When that rate expired in 2022, Mrs A took another five year fixed rate. In late October 2024, Mrs A got in touch with NatWest to say that she was experiencing financial difficulty and wouldn’t be able to make the payment due at the end of the month. The direct debit was cancelled to avoid it bouncing. NatWest sent Mrs A an income and expenditure form, and asked her to complete it and then call back to see what it could do to support her. In November, NatWest agreed that Mrs A could make no payments for that month and December. It explained that the missed payments would be reported to her credit file as arrears by arrangement, and that there would need to be a further discussion about making up the missed payments. In February 2025, following a further review of her income and expenditure, Mrs A had another conversation with NatWest. NatWest said that there wasn’t anything else it could offer, because the financial information showed that the mortgage wasn’t affordable for her. In July 2025, NatWest agreed a term extension, increasing the term by six years, and agreed to capitalise the remaining arrears. Mrs A complained. She said NatWest hadn’t treated her fairly. It hadn’t been sympathetic and made it difficult for her to resolve her situation. Our investigator said that we could only consider part of Mrs A’s complaint. He didn’t think NatWest had acted unfairly. So Mrs A asked for an ombudsman to review the complaint. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. Mrs A made a series of complaints to NatWest about how it had treated her, and NatWest issued three final responses: • On 7 February 2025 – to a complaint that NatWest had told her it couldn’t agree a further arrangement because the mortgage was in arrears and Mrs A’s income and expenditure information didn’t show that she could afford to repay the arrears. • On 20 February 2025 – to a complaint that NatWest hadn’t made clear it might not

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agree a further arrangement when agreeing to the original arrangement. • On 28 March 2025 – to a complaint about how a call on 25 February had been handled. The rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service say that a complaint must be referred to us within six months of the date NatWest issued its final response. If a complaint is referred outside the time limit we can’t consider it – unless NatWest consents to us doing so even though the complaint is out of time (which it doesn’t), or unless there are exceptional circumstances to explain why it couldn’t have been referred in time. Mrs A first referred her complaint to us on 21 August 2025, more than six months after the first two final responses were issued. She’s explained that she was trying to resolve things with NatWest and didn’t realise it would take so long. She had to ask it to re-open the complaints but it said they were closed down. She didn’t realise it would take so long to resolve. I’ve thought about what Mrs A says. But I’m afraid I don’t think it amounts to exceptional circumstances explaining why the earlier complaint responses couldn’t have been referred to us in time. I’m afraid that means that all I can consider in this complaint is what happened around the call on 25 February. I’ve listened to that call. I can understand why Mrs A was frustrated. She was now in a position to make her monthly payments, and she wanted to come to an arrangement to repay the arrears which had built up. She’d already completed an income and expenditure form. She was proposing to pay around £60 per month. NatWest said that the income and expenditure information showed that Mrs A could afford more than that – it showed her disposable income as over £300 per month. Mrs A explained that she also needed to pay for a car. The car payments hadn’t been included in the income and expenditure form. NatWest said it was important that Mrs A pay as much as she could so that the arrears be reduced faster. It wanted to go over the income and expenditure information again. Mrs A said she was at work and would have to call back another time. As I say, I can understand why Mrs A was frustrated. She was offering to pay towards reducing the arrears, and wanted to agree an arrangement. But it wasn’t unreasonable of NatWest to want to explore her wider circumstances and what she could afford to pay – it was in Mrs A’s best interests to reduce the arrears as quickly as she sustainably could. Having listened to the call, I don’t think the tone of NatWest’s agent was inappropriate or that she patronised Mrs A. I’m pleased to see that Mrs A was able to agree an arrangement, and that later in 2025 NatWest agreed to capitalise the arrears and extend the term. That means Mrs A’s mortgage is now back on track, and I hope the difficulties she experienced in 2024 and 2025 are behind her. My final decision My final decision is that I don’t uphold this complaint. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Mrs A to accept or reject my decision before 17 April 2026. Simon Pugh

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Ombudsman

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