Shawbrook Bank Limited · DRN-6236732

The complaint Mr and Mrs U’s complaint is, in essence, that Shawbrook Bank Limited (the ‘Lender’) acted unfairly and unreasonably by being party to an unfair credit relationship with them under Section 140A of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (as amended) (the ‘CCA’). What happened Mr and Mrs U were members of a timeshare provider (the ‘Supplier’) – having purchased a number of products from it over time. But the product at the centre of this complaint is their membership of a timeshare that I’ll call the ‘Fractional Club’ – points in which Mr and Mrs U purchased on the dates below: • 700 fractional points on 28 October 2016 for £13,364, but after trading in a former membership the net cost was £9,369 (‘Purchase Agreement 1’) • 1,500 fractional points on 23 August 2017 for a net cost of £18,052 – having traded in the first lot of fractional points. (‘Purchase Agreement 2’) (which, when appropriate, I’ll simply refer to as the ‘’Purchase Agreements’) As this complaint is concerned with the purchases on dates, those are the ‘Time(s) of Sale’ for the purposes of my decision. Fractional Club membership was asset backed – which meant it gave Mr and Mrs U more than just holiday rights. It also included a share in the net sale proceeds of a property named on the relevant purchase agreement (which I’ll refer to as the ‘Allocated Property ‘1 and 2’ or, when appropriate, the ‘Allocated Properties’) after their membership term ends. Mr and Mrs U paid for their fractional points by taking the following amounts of finance of from the Lender: • £13,150 on 28 October 2016 (‘Credit Agreement 1’) • £31,204 on 23 August 2017 (‘Credit Agreement 2’) (which, when appropriate, I’ll simply refer to as the ‘’Credit Agreements’) Mr and Mrs U initially contacted this service to raise a complaint about their agreements on 14 October 2022. They said that they’d been made aware they could complain about the sale of their memberships following contact from a professional representative (not the one which now represents them). They said that memberships were mis-sold on the basis that the Supplier pressured them into it and didn’t give them sufficient time to consider the purchases. One of our investigators considered that complaint. In the meantime Mr and Mrs U – using another professional representative (the ‘PR’) – wrote to the Lender on 23 September 2023. (the ‘Letter of Complaint’) to raise a number of different concerns, including the assertion that membership had been marketed and sold as an investment. As those concerns haven’t

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changed since they were first raised, and as both sides are familiar with them, it isn’t necessary to repeat them in detail here beyond the summary above. The Lender dealt with Mr and Mrs U’s concerns as a complaint and issued its final response letter on 8 July 2024. The Lender said it believed the complaint had been made too late, but it otherwise rejected it on every ground. The complaint was then referred to the Financial Ombudsman Service. By this point the Lender had changed its stance on the complaint having been made too late, and accepted it was one this service had the power to consider. It was assessed by an Investigator who, having considered the information on file, rejected the complaint on its merits. Mr and Mrs U disagreed with the Investigator’s assessment and asked for an Ombudsman’s decision – which is why it was passed to me. I issued a provisional decision (“PD”) on the case. In summary, I said: Section 140A of the CCA: did the Lender participate in an unfair credit relationship? I’ve already explained why I’m not persuaded that Fractional Club membership was actionably misrepresented by the Supplier at the Times of sale. But there are other aspects of the sales process that, being the subject of dissatisfaction, I must explore with Section 140A in mind if I’m to consider this complaint in full – which is what I’ve done next. However, having considered the entirety of the credit relationship between Mr and Mrs U and the Lender along with all of the circumstances of the complaint, I don’t think the credit relationship between them was likely to have been rendered unfair for the purposes of Section 140A. When coming to that conclusion, and in carrying out my analysis, I have looked at: 1. The standard of the Supplier’s commercial conduct – which includes its sales and marketing practices at the Times of sale along with any relevant training material; 2. The provision of information by the Supplier at the Times of sale, including the contractual documentation and disclaimers made by the Supplier; 3. The commission arrangements between the Lender and the Supplier at the Times of sale and the disclosure of those arrangements; 4. Evidence provided by both parties on what was likely to have been said and/or done at the Times of sale; 5. The inherent probabilities of the sale given its circumstances; and, when relevant 6. Any existing unfairness from a related credit agreement. I have then considered the impact of these on the fairness of the credit relationship between Mr and Mrs U and the Lender. The Supplier’s sales & marketing practices at the Times of sale Mr and Mrs U’s complaint about the Lender being party to an unfair credit relationship was and is made for several reasons. The PR says, for instance, that: 1. the right checks weren’t carried out before the Lender lent to Mr and Mrs U; 2. The Credit Agreement was arranged by a broker acting outside of its authorisation, 3. Mr and Mrs U was pressured by the Supplier into purchasing Fractional Club membership at the Times of sale;

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4. there was one or more unfair contract terms in the Purchase Agreement; and; 5. Fractional Club membership was marketed and sold as investment in breach of a prohibition on doing so. While the PR says that the right affordability checks weren’t carried out at the Times of sale, even if I were to find that the Lender failed to do everything it should have when it agreed to lend (and I make no such finding), I would have to be satisfied that the money lent to Mr and Mrs U was actually unaffordable before also concluding that they lost out as a result and then consider whether the credit relationship with the Lender was unfair to them for this reason. But from the information provided, I am not satisfied that the lending was unaffordable for the Mr and Mrs U. Connected to this is the suggestion by the PR that the Credit Agreement was arranged by an unauthorised credit broker the upshot of which is to suggest that the Lender wasn’t permitted to enforce the Credit Agreement. However, it looks to me like Mr and Mrs U knew, amongst other things, how much they were borrowing and repaying each month, who they were borrowing from and that they were borrowing money to pay for Fractional Club membership. And as the lending doesn’t look like it was unaffordable for them, even if the Credit Agreement was arranged by a broker that didn’t have the necessary permission to do so (which I make no formal finding on), I can’t see why that led to Mr and Mrs U financial loss – such that I can say that the credit relationship in question was unfair on them as a result. And with that being the case, I’m not persuaded that it would be fair or reasonable to tell the Lender to compensate them, even if the loan wasn’t arranged properly. I acknowledge that Mr and Mrs U may have felt weary after a sales process that went on for a long time. But they say little about what was said and/or done by the Supplier during their sales presentation that made them feel as if they had no choice but to purchase Fractional Club membership when they simply did not want to. They were also given a 14-day cooling off period and they have not provided a credible explanation for why they did not cancel their membership during that time. And with all of that being the case, there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate that Mr and Mrs U made the decision to purchase Fractional Club membership because their ability to exercise that choice was significantly impaired by pressure from the Supplier. The PR also says that there was one or more unfair contract terms in the Purchase Agreement. But as I can’t see that any such terms were operated unfairly against Mr and Mrs U in practice, nor that any such terms led them to behave in a certain way to their detriment, I’m not persuaded that any of the terms governing Fractional Club membership are likely to have led to an unfairness that warrants a remedy. Overall, therefore, I don’t think that Mr and Mrs U credit relationship with the Lender was rendered unfair to them under Section 140A for any of the reasons above. But there is another reason, perhaps the main reason, why the PR says the credit relationship with the Lender was unfair to them. And that’s the suggestion that Fractional Club membership was marketed and sold to them as an investment in breach of prohibition against selling timeshares in that way.

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The Supplier’s alleged breach of Regulation 14(3) of the Timeshare Regulations The Lender does not dispute, and I am satisfied, that Mr and Mrs U’s Fractional Club membership met the definition of a “timeshare contract” and was a “regulated contract” for the purposes of the Timeshare Regulations. Regulation 14(3) of the Timeshare Regulations prohibited the Supplier from marketing or selling Fractional Club membership as an investment. This is what the provision said at the Times of sale: “A trader must not market or sell a proposed timeshare contract or long-term holiday product contract as an investment if the proposed contract would be a regulated contract.” But the PR says that the Supplier did exactly that at the Times of sale. The term “investment” is not defined in the Timeshare Regulations. But for the purposes of this provisional decision, and by reference to the decided authorities, an investment is a transaction in which money or other property is laid out in the expectation or hope of financial gain or profit. A share in the Allocated Property clearly constituted an investment as it offered Mr and Mrs U the prospect of a financial return – whether or not, like all investments, that was more than what they first put into it. But it is important to note at this stage that the fact that Fractional Club membership included an investment element did not, itself, transgress the prohibition in Regulation 14(3). That provision prohibits the marketing and selling of a timeshare contract as an investment. It doesn’t prohibit the mere existence of an investment element in a timeshare contract or prohibit the marketing and selling of such a timeshare contract per se. In other words, the Timeshare Regulations did not ban products such as the Fractional Club. They just regulated how such products were marketed and sold. To conclude, therefore, that Fractional Club membership was marketed or sold to Mr and Mrs U as an investment in breach of Regulation 14(3), I have to be persuaded that it was more likely than not that the Supplier marketed and/or sold membership to them as an investment, i.e. told them or led them to believe that Fractional Club membership offered them the prospect of a financial gain (i.e., a profit) given the facts and circumstances of this complaint. There is competing evidence in this complaint as to whether Fractional Club membership was marketed and/or sold by the Supplier at the Times of sale as an investment in breach of regulation 14(3) of the Timeshare Regulations. On the one hand, it is clear that the Supplier made efforts to avoid specifically describing membership of the Fractional Club as an ‘investment’ or quantifying to prospective purchasers, such as Mr and Mrs U, the financial value of their share in the net sales proceeds of the Allocated Property along with the investment considerations, risks and rewards attached to them. On the other hand, I acknowledge that the Supplier’s sales process left open the possibility that the sales representative may have positioned Fractional Club membership as an investment. So, I accept that it’s equally possible that Fractional Club membership was marketed and sold to Mr and Mrs U as an investment in breach of Regulation 14(3). However, whether or not there was a breach of the relevant prohibition by the Supplier is not ultimately determinative of the outcome in this complaint for reasons I will come on to

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shortly. And with that being the case, it’s not necessary to make a formal finding on that particular issue for the purposes of this decision. Was the credit relationship between the Lender and the Consumer rendered unfair? Having found that it was possible that the Supplier breached Regulation 14(3) of the Timeshare Regulations at the Times of sale, I now need to consider what impact that breach had on the fairness of the credit relationship between Mr and Mrs U and the Lender under the Credit Agreement and related Purchase Agreement as the case law on Section 140A makes it clear that regulatory breaches do not automatically create unfairness for the purposes of that provision. Such breaches and their consequences (if there are any) must be considered in the round, rather than in a narrow or technical way. Indeed, it seems to me that, if I am to conclude that a breach of Regulation 14(3) led to a credit relationship between Mr and Mrs U and the Lender that was unfair to them and warranted relief as a result, whether the Supplier’s breach of Regulation 14(3) led them to enter into the Purchase Agreement and the Credit Agreement is an important consideration. But on my reading of the evidence before me, the prospect of a financial gain from Fractional Club membership was not an important and motivating factor when Mr and Mrs U decided to go ahead with their purchase. I’ll explain why. The Letter of Complaint submitted on Mr and Mrs U’s behalf is broadly the same as others submitted by the same PR. In some places it’s identical, but otherwise broadly similar. So I find it of little use in determining what Mr and Mrs U’s thoughts at the Time of Sale were, and I put little weight on it. The PR provided a witness statement from Mr and Mrs U. It’s signed and dated 28 September 2023, but it was provided to this service on 16 September 2024. It gives an account of the sales of both of the memberships in question. And it describes memberships having been marketed as investments in 2016, for example, they say: “The [Supplier] representative explained that when the property was eventually sold, we would receive the net proceeds of the sale. This could’ve been more than the initial purchase price which made us feel like we would be purchasing a valuable asset. To convince us that the FPOC would be a good investment, the [Supplier] representative showed us a PowerPoint demonstrating how the investment would grow, and how we would get our money back.” Regarding the 2017 purchase they say: “We were told that if we upgraded to the Signature Collection, we would receive an upgraded apartment and we would also receive a greater financial return when the property was eventually sold.” In determining how much weigh to put on Mr and Mrs U’s testimony, I need to take into account that it was submitted after the judgment in R (on the application of Shawbrook Bank Ltd) v Financial Ombudsman Service Ltd and R (on the application of Clydesdale Financial Services Ltd (t/a Barclays Partner Finance)) v Financial Ombudsman Service [2023] EWHC 1069 (Admin) (‘Shawbrook & BPF v FOS’) was handed down.

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The PR references the determination made by this service which was subject to that judgement in the Letter of Complaint. The PR also provided a copy of the judgement in support of the complaint. So, I think it’s clear that the PR and Mr and Mrs U were aware of a case with similar circumstances which was upheld, as well as the reasons for that. I’m also mindful that Mr and Mrs U’s recollections were taken several years after the events. Experience tells me that, the more time that passes between a complaint and the event complained about, the more risk there is of recollections being vague, inaccurate and/or influenced by discussion with others. Given the above, I think there’s a real risk here that Mr and Mrs U’s recollections could’ve been influenced by one of the factors I’ve mentioned. And I think that risk is a probability in this case given that Mr and Mrs U sought to bring a complaint in 2022 about the mis-sale of their membership but they didn’t mention investment. And it was only following the outcome in ‘Shawbrook & BPF v FOS’ and appointing their PR that they recalled memberships had been marketed and sold as investments. Overall, given everything that I’ve said above, I don’t think I can give Mr and Mrs U’s written recollections the weight necessary to finding that the credit relationship in question was unfair for reasons relating to a breach of the relevant prohibition. That doesn’t mean they weren’t interested in a share in the Allocated Property. After all, that wouldn’t be surprising given the nature of the product at the centre of this complaint. But as Mr and Mrs U themselves don’t persuade me that their purchase was motivated by their share in the Allocated Property and the possibility of a profit, I don’t think a breach of Regulation 14(3) by the Supplier was likely to have been material to the decision they ultimately made. On balance, therefore, even if the Supplier had marketed or sold the Fractional Club membership as an investment in breach of Regulation 14(3) of the Timeshare Regulations, I am not persuaded that Mr and Mrs U’s decision to purchase Fractional Club membership at the Times of sale was motivated by the prospect of a financial gain (i.e., a profit). On the contrary, I think the evidence suggests they would have pressed ahead with their purchase whether or not there had been a breach of Regulation 14(3). And for that reason, I do not think the credit relationship between Mr and Mrs U and the Lender was unfair to them even if the Supplier had breached Regulation 14(3). The provision of information by the Supplier at the Times of sale The PR says that Mr and Mrs U was not given sufficient information at the Times of sale by the Supplier about the ongoing costs of Fractional Club membership. As I’ve already indicated, the case law on Section 140A makes it clear that it does not automatically follow that regulatory breaches create unfairness for the purposes of the unfair relationship provisions. The extent to which such failures render a credit relationship unfair must also be determined according to their impact on the complainant. I acknowledge that it is also possible that the Supplier did not give Mr and Mrs U sufficient information, in good time, on the various charges they could have been subject to as Fractional Club members in order to satisfy the requirements of Regulation 12 of the 2010 Timeshare Regulations (which was concerned with the provision of ‘key information’). But even if that was the case, I cannot see that the ongoing costs of membership were applied unfairly in practice. And as neither Mr and Mrs U nor the PR have persuaded me in this particular case that they would not have pressed ahead with their purchase had those details been disclosed by the Supplier in compliance with Regulation 12, I cannot see why any

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failings in that regard are likely to be material to the outcome of this complaint given its facts and circumstances. The PR says that a payment of commission from the Lender to the Supplier at the Time of Sale should lead me to uphold this complaint because, simply put, information in relation to that payment went undisclosed at the Time of Sale. As both sides already know, the Supreme Court handed down an important judgment on 1 August 2025 in a series of cases concerned with the issue of commission: Johnson v FirstRand Bank Ltd, Wrench v FirstRand Bank Ltd and Hopcraft v Close Brothers Ltd [2025] UKSC 33 (‘Hopcraft, Johnson and Wrench’). The Supreme Court ruled that, in each of the three cases, the commission payments made to car dealers by lenders were legal, as claims for the tort of bribery, or the dishonest assistance of a breach of fiduciary duty, had to be predicated on the car dealer owing a fiduciary duty to the consumer, which the car dealers did not owe. A “disinterested duty”, as described in Wood v Commercial First Business Ltd & ors and Business Mortgage Finance 4 plc v Pengelly [2021] EWCA Civ 471, is not enough. However, the Supreme Court held that the credit relationship between the lender and Mr Johnson was unfair under Section 140A of the CCA because of the commission paid by the lender to the car dealer. The main reasons for coming to that conclusion included, amongst other things, the following factors: 1. The size of the commission (as a percentage of the total charge for credit). In Mr Johnson’s case it was 55%. This was “so high” and “a powerful indication that the relationship…was unfair” (see paragraph 327); 2. The failure to disclose the commission; and 3. The concealment of the commercial tie between the car dealer and the lender. The Supreme Court also confirmed that the following factors, in what was a non-exhaustive list, will normally be relevant when assessing whether a credit relationship was/is unfair under Section 140A of the CCA: 1. The size of the commission as a proportion of the charge for credit; 2. The way in which commission is calculated (a discretionary commission arrangement, for example, may lead to higher interest rates); 3. The characteristics of the consumer; 4. The extent of any disclosure and the manner of that disclosure (which, insofar as Section 56 of the CCA is engaged, includes any disclosure by a supplier when acting as a broker); and 5. Compliance with the regulatory rules. From my reading of the Supreme Court’s judgment in Hopcraft, Johnson and Wrench, it sets out principles which apply to credit brokers other than car dealer–credit brokers. So, when considering allegations of undisclosed payments of commission like the one in this complaint, Hopcraft, Johnson and Wrench is relevant law that I’m required to consider under Rule 3.6.4 of the Financial Conduct Authority’s Dispute Resolution Rules (‘DISP’).

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But I don’t think Hopcraft, Johnson and Wrench assists Mr and Mrs U in arguing that their credit relationship with the Lender was unfair to them for reasons relating to commission given the facts and circumstances of this complaint. I haven’t seen anything to suggest that the Lender and Supplier were tied to one another contractually or commercially in a way that wasn’t properly disclosed to Mr and Mrs U, nor have I seen anything that persuades me that the commission arrangement between them gave the Supplier a choice over the interest rate that led Mr and Mrs U into a credit agreement that cost disproportionately more than it otherwise could have. I acknowledge that it’s possible that the Lender and the Supplier failed to follow the regulatory guidance in place at the Time of Sale insofar as it was relevant to disclosing the commission arrangements between them. But as I’ve said before, the case law on Section 140A makes it clear that regulatory breaches do not automatically create unfairness for the purposes of that provision. Such breaches and their consequences (if there are any) must be considered in the round, rather than in a narrow or technical way. And with that being the case, it isn’t necessary to make a formal finding on that because, even if the Lender and the Supplier failed to follow the relevant regulatory guidance at the Time of Sale, it is for the reasons set out below that I don’t currently think any such failure is itself a reason to find the credit relationship in question unfair to Mr and Mrs U. In stark contrast to the facts of Mr Johnson’s case, I understand that no commission was paid by the Lender in relation to Credit Agreement 1. In relation to Credit Agreement 2, any commission paid wasn’t high. At £1,560.2, it was only 5% of the amount borrowed and even less than that (4.63%) as a proportion of the charge for credit. So, had they known at the Time of Sale that the Supplier was going to be paid a flat rate of commission at that level, I’m not currently persuaded that they either wouldn’t have understood that or would have otherwise questioned the size of the payment at that time. After all, Mr and Mrs U wanted Fractional Club membership and had no obvious means of their own to pay for it. And at such a low level, the impact of commission on the cost of the credit they needed for a timeshare they wanted doesn’t strike me as disproportionate. So, I think they would still have taken out the loan to fund their purchase at the Time of Sale had the amount of commission been disclosed. What’s more, based on what I’ve seen so far, the Supplier’s role as a credit broker wasn’t a separate service and distinct from its role as the seller of timeshares. It was simply a means to an end in the Supplier’s overall pursuit of a successful timeshare sale. I can’t see that the Supplier gave an undertaking – either expressly or impliedly – to put to one side its commercial interests in pursuit of that goal when arranging the Credit Agreement. And as it wasn’t acting as an agent of Mr and Mrs U but as the supplier of contractual rights they obtained under the Purchase Agreement, the transaction doesn’t strike me as one with features that suggest the Supplier had an obligation of ‘loyalty’ to them when arranging the Credit Agreement and thus a fiduciary duty. Overall, therefore, I’m not currently persuaded that the commission arrangements between the Supplier and the Lender were likely to have led to a sufficiently extreme inequality of knowledge that rendered the credit relationship unfair to Mr and Mrs U. Section 140A: Conclusion Given all of the factors I’ve looked at in this part of my decision, and having taken all of them into account, I’m not persuaded that the credit relationship between Mr and Mrs U and the Lender under the Credit Agreement and related Purchase Agreement was unfair to them. And as things currently stand, I don’t think it would be fair or reasonable that I uphold this complaint on that basis.

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Commission: The Alternative Grounds of Complaint While I’ve found that Mr and Mrs U credit relationship with the Lender wasn’t unfair to them for reasons relating to the commission arrangements between it and the Supplier, two of the grounds on which I came to that conclusion also constitute separate and freestanding complaints to Mr and Mrs U complaint about an unfair credit relationship. So, for completeness, I’ve considered those grounds on that basis here. The first ground relates to whether the Lender is liable for the dishonest assistance of a breach of fiduciary duty by the Supplier because it took a payment of commission from the Lender without telling Mr and Mrs U (i.e., secretly). And the second relates to the Lender’s compliance with the regulatory guidance in place at the Time of Sale insofar as it was relevant to disclosing the commission arrangements between them. However, for the reasons I set out above, I’m not persuaded that the Supplier – when acting as credit broker – owed Mr and Mrs U a fiduciary duty. So, the remedies that might be available at law in relation to the payment of secret commission aren’t, in my view, available to them. And while it’s possible that the Lender failed to follow the regulatory guidance in place at the Time of Sale insofar as it was relevant to disclosing the commission arrangements between it and the Supplier, I don’t think any such failure on the Lender’s part is itself a reason to uphold this complaint because, for the reasons I also set out above, I think they would still have taken out the loan to fund their purchase at the Time of Sale had there been more adequate disclosure of the commission arrangements that applied at that time. In conclusion, I was not persuaded that the Lender was party to a credit relationship with Mr and Mrs U under the Credit Agreement that was unfair to them for the purposes of Section 140A of the CCA – nor did I see any other reason why it would be fair or reasonable to direct the Lender to compensate them. The Lender responded to say that it accepted my PD. The PR responded with further comments from Mr and Mrs U, disagreeing with my PD. They said, in summary: - they were deceived into purchasing an investment; - the Lender did not consider the full extent of their financial status at the time; - they received no correspondence or refunds from the Supplier or the Lender for the time during the global pandemic in 2020-21 when they weren’t authorised to travel. They’d like to receive a refund. Now that both parties have responded to my PD, I’m finalising my decision. The legal and regulatory context In considering what is fair and reasonable in all the circumstances of the complaint, I am required under DISP 3.6.4R to take into account: relevant (i) law and regulations; (ii) regulators’ rules, guidance and standards; and (iii) codes of practice; and (where appropriate), what I consider to have been good industry practice at the relevant time. The legal and regulatory context that I think is relevant to this complaint is no different to that shared in several hundred ombudsman decisions on very similar complaints. And with that being the case, it is not necessary to set it out here. But I would add that the following regulatory rules/guidance are also relevant:

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The Consumer Credit Sourcebook (‘CONC’) – Found in the Financial Conduct Authority’s (the ‘FCA’) Handbook of Rules and Guidance Below are the most relevant provisions and/or guidance as they were at the relevant time: • CONC 3.7.3 [R] • CONC 4.5.3 [R] • CONC 4.5.2 [G] The FCA’s Principles The rules on consumer credit sit alongside the wider obligations of firms, such as the Principles for Businesses (‘PRIN’). Set out below are those that are most relevant to this complaint: • Principle 6 • Principle 7 • Principle 8 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. I’ve carefully considered the further comments that have been supplied by Mr and Mrs U. Having done so, they haven’t caused me to change my mind on the case. I’ll explain why. As my PD explained, Mr and Mrs U originally sought to complain about the same issue in 2022. They gave a detailed explanation as to their dissatisfaction with Fractional Club memberships and why they believed the Lender ought to be answerable for those issues. They made several submissions about their dissatisfaction, focusing on the Supplier going into administration, feeling pressured into the agreements as well as the interest rate on the Lending being high. This service gave an answer to those points, but it was only following the outcome in ‘Shawbrook & BPF v FOS’ that Mr and Mrs U said that memberships had been marketed and sold to them as investments. And their accounts of the sales became focused on that point, having not mentioned it previously. Taking into account the risk that Mr and Mrs U’s recollection could’ve been influenced by a variety of factors such as the outcome of the aforementioned judgement, as well as the inconsistencies between their accounts of the Time of Sale, I still don’t think that I can place sufficient weight on their recollections to find that that the credit relationships in question were unfair for reasons relating to a breach of the relevant prohibition. My PD covered the point that Mr and Mrs U have made about the right affordability checks being carried out. In my view they haven’t provided any materially new evidence in relation to this point. They still haven’t demonstrated that the lending was actually unaffordable for them and that they lost out as a result. And I think they’ve had ample opportunity to provide such evidence. So, I’m still of the view that from the information provided, the lending was not unaffordable for Mr and Mrs U and I cannot find that the credit relationship with the Lender was unfair to them for this reason. Lastly, I think the final point Mr and Mrs U have made is the first time it’s been said in the

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context of the complaint. I’ve not seen that the Lender has responded to this point. In any case, it’s not clear why Mr and Mrs U believe that the Lender ought to be answerable for such a complaint point or ought to provide a refund for a time that they were not allowed to travel to the Supplier’s accommodation. It’s not a point that causes me to change my mind on what was said in the PD. My final decision For the reasons explained above, 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 U and Mr U to accept or reject my decision before 21 April 2026. Stephen Trapp Ombudsman

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