Charter Court Financial Services Limited · DRN-6319455

The complaint Mr L complains that Charter Court Financial Services Limited trading as Precise Mortgages reported him to a fraud prevention database in connection with a bridging loan application. What happened In 2025 Mr L applied to Precise for a one year bridging loan to fund the purchase of a property. The application was made via a broker. Precise assessed the application and offered Mr L a loan of £450,000 on interest only terms repayable in one year. After the offer was issued Precise made some further checks. It had some concerns about the evidence provided in support of Mr L’s income, so it asked the broker for further information – in particular, evidence that Mr L had paid a tax bill. The broker replied to say that the property purchase was no longer going ahead and asking for the application to be withdrawn. The further information Precise had asked for was not provided. Precise reported Mr L to the fraud prevention databases. Mr L discovered this when he applied to a different lender. He made a complaint to Cifas, one of the fraud prevention databases. Cifas told him that Precise had identified that a tax year overview document provided in support of the application had been altered. Cifas did not uphold his complaint or remove the marker on the database, so Mr L brought his complaint to us. Our investigator didn’t think the complaint should be upheld, so Mr L asked for it to be reviewed by an ombudsman. 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. First of all, I’ve looked at the history of the application and what was submitted to Precise. Because this was an interest only bridging loan, Precise wanted to know how Mr L would repay it at the end of the term. The broker said he intended to take out a standard mortgage. So Precise asked for income information to assess whether that was plausible. On 27 October 2025, Precise emailed the broker to ask for Mr L’s tax calculation and tax year overview documents. At 9.18 on 28 October, the broker forwarded an email from Mr L including his tax year overview document. At 9.22 the same day, Precise responded to say that it required an updated tax year overview showing that there was no tax outstanding for the year 2023/24. On 31 October, the broker emailed Precise attaching an updated tax year overview showing no tax outstanding. On 4 November Precise issued a mortgage offer. But then having carried out checks of the tax year overview document, it believed the document had been altered. On 12 November it asked the broker for further evidence that Mr L had paid his tax liability for that year, such as

-- 1 of 4 --

a bank statement showing the tax payment, and said this would be needed before the loan could complete. A few minutes later the broker responded to say that Mr L had just notified the broker that the seller had pulled out of the sale so the loan was no longer required. No further evidence was sent to Precise. I think the evidence is clear that the tax year overview document sent to Precise on 31 October was altered. Precise has explained why it believes that to be the case. And Mr L accepts that the document was altered. Mr L says that there was a tax balance outstanding from the 2023/24 financial year. He paid the outstanding amount to HMRC on 27 October. He’s given us an extract from his bank statement showing the payment. But he says that there was an error at HMRC, which meant the payment was mis-allocated. As a result, his tax year overview did not show a balance of £0 as the tax outstanding. This has since been corrected by HMRC. Mr L says that a colleague of his altered the tax year overview document “to demonstrate how the document should appear once the payment had been correctly allocated”. He understood that there was in fact no tax now owing, although the tax year overview didn’t yet show that, and so the altered tax year overview was “illustrative in nature”, based on the genuine tax position, and not created with any intention to mislead. The altered document was based on what Mr L legitimately understood his tax position to be, and that he had a “legitimate basis” for expecting it to show £0 outstanding. He says that the document was altered for illustrative purposes only. It was then mistakenly attached to an email to the broker, who forwarded it on to the lender. There is therefore no evidence of fraud or dishonesty on his part. What Mr L says, in essence, is this. On 27 October, a tax year overview was submitted to Precise showing an outstanding tax liability. Precise asked for the tax to be paid and an updated tax year overview evidencing that to be submitted. Mr L paid the tax on 27 October. Due to an administrative error at HMRC his self-assessment record wasn’t updated. He or a colleague altered his tax year overview document so that it appeared as if the outstanding balance was now zero. But this was done purely to show Mr L what that would look like and wasn’t intended to be submitted to Precise. The altered document was then accidentally sent to the broker. But Mr L did not intend to send it to the broker or Precise and did not intend to mislead Precise. Precise had asked for, and was expecting, a revised tax year overview showing the tax had now been paid. If that wasn’t available, it’s difficult to see why Mr L didn’t explain that. He could have told the broker that the tax had been paid but that his self assessment account hadn’t been updated, and asked whether Precise would accept a bank statement showing the payment or would wait a few more days for his account to be updated. It’s also difficult to see why altering the genuine document to “illustrate” what it would look like if it had been updated was necessary or appropriate, if the intention was only ever that this would be seen by Mr L and not sent on to the broker or Precise. That alteration happened at some point between 11.32 on 31 October, when the document was printed, and 4.17 on the same day when it was sent to Precise. It’s also difficult to see, if there was no genuine tax year overview then available showing that there was no outstanding liability and Mr L knew that was the case, why he didn’t simply tell the broker that. It’s difficult to see how he could have mistakenly attached the altered document to an email when there was no genuine document to have mistaken it for. As I say, there’s no doubt Precise received an altered tax year overview, and that the source of the altered document was Mr L – he sent it to the broker who then sent it on.

-- 2 of 4 --

The standard for making a report to the Cifas database is that Precise should have clear, relevant and rigorous evidence to support a reasonable suspicion that fraud has been committed or attempted. I’m satisfied it was fair and reasonable for Precise to conclude that the standard was met. It asked for evidence that a tax liability had been met, received an altered document in response, and when it asked for further evidence (such as a bank statement showing the tax payment), it was told the application had been withdrawn. I’m satisfied that there was clear evidence that false evidence had been submitted in support of a mortgage application. Whether or not the tax had actually been paid is irrelevant. Even if by 31 October Mr L in fact had no outstanding tax liability, that wasn’t what his tax year overview said. The fact is that a document was submitted to Precise showing a zero balance, and that document was not genuine. What the document said might well have reflected Mr L’s actual tax liability on that date. But the fact is that it was false evidence. The document itself was not genuine, even if the situation it purported to describe was. Precise asked for evidence to show that Mr L’s outstanding tax liability was zero, and it was presented with evidence that was fake. As Mr L himself said, bank statements do not provide a definitive statement of an individual’s tax position; only an SA302 and tax year overview can do that. And in this case, the tax year overview was not genuine. Precise was satisfied – with good reason – that the document itself was false. And when it asked for additional evidence of payment of the outstanding tax liability, it was instead told that the application was to be withdrawn. In those circumstances, I’m satisfied it was fair and reasonable for Precise to conclude that there was a reasonable suspicion that Mr L had sought to obtain a mortgage relying on false documentation. There was no obligation on Precise to contact Mr L directly. He had instructed a broker to act on his behalf and as his agent. Therefore all communication about the application was through the broker. Precise asked for – and received – evidence from the broker. It then asked for further evidence, and instead of providing it the broker withdrew the application. It was fair and reasonable for Precise to rely on its communication with the broker as Mr L’s nominated agent. Nor was there any obligation on Precise to tell Mr L that it had made the report, either before or after doing so. The application form he signed included a warning that information could be shared with fraud prevention agencies. There is no obligation or requirement to notify Mr L before making a report. For those reasons, I don’t uphold the complaint that Precise acted unfairly in reporting the marker to Cifas. I’ve also thought about whether it would be fair and reasonable to ask Precise to remove the marker now, even if it was justified at the time. But I’m not persuaded of that either. I’m satisfied that it’s still fair and reasonable to conclude that the standard is met. I’ve taken into account everything Mr L has said. But I’m not persuaded that his testimony that the overview was altered by someone else and not him; that it was done purely to illustrate to Mr L what it would look like if it showed the tax as having been paid; that Mr L accidentally sent the altered document to the broker; and that he had no intention of it being presented to Precise as genuine; is so compelling as to leave no remaining basis for reasonable grounds for suspicion that he did send the altered document to the broker intending it to be passed on to Precise as evidence that he had cleared the liability. In the circumstances I can’t safely say that the standard is no longer met or that the marker should be removed.

-- 3 of 4 --

Finally, I’ve considered Mr L’s argument that leaving the marker on for six years is disproportionate. I appreciate its presence causes Mr L difficulties in obtaining other credit and other matters. But the fraud prevention databases play an important part in supporting the wider integrity of the financial services market. The presence of a marker should not be an automatic barrier to any other lender approving an application. But the fact that an application which included altered documentation was made is relevant information future lenders may want to take into account in making their own lending decisions and in deciding what checks of their own to carry out. In circumstances where the standard for a report was and is met, and where in making the report Precise has complied with the rules of the database, I don’t think it would be fair and reasonable to require it to remove the marker because of the impact on Mr L. 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 Mr L to accept or reject my decision before 26 May 2026. Simon Pugh Ombudsman

-- 4 of 4 --