How a banking error 30 YEARS ago left me and my wife penniless

A couple in their 70s have claimed that a bank error 30 years ago left them without money – and they are still fighting for £150,000 in compensation.

Bernard Lockett, 78, says he and his wife Lea, 73, lost tens of thousands of pounds selling their house due to financial ‘mismanagement’ by the main bank, RBS.

The pair sold a holiday tour company in 1993 and their bungalow in Comrie, Perthshire the following year.

Mr Lockett said he had an overdraft and business loan with RBS, and after the house was sold for £131,000 they had expected to recoup around £20,000 in profit.

But he became concerned when this windfall never materialized and RBS refused to say how much of their money had been used to settle their outstanding debts.

Mr Lockett requested meetings but claims he was continually ‘rejected’ by the bank, later launching legal action after their paperwork went missing.

In 2018, he gave testimony to the All Party Parliamentary Group in Fair Business Banking about his situation as the couple fought to get their money back.

And a forensic lawyer investigating their case also sided with the Locketts, filing a report saying they should be awarded around £150,000 in damages.

An RBS spokesperson rejected the couple’s claim, adding: “The bank has fully complied with its legal record-keeping requirements in this matter.”

But Lockett is disgusted with the way he has been treated and now worries that he will be forced to live on the streets if he is evicted from his rented home.

He said: ‘I’m quite disgusted that they can treat people the way they do and not even allow a meeting to talk about anything.

“They were presented with a legal document outlining the mistakes and what the issues were, and they can still say, ‘We don’t want to meet’ or ‘There’s nothing to say’ – it’s totally wrong.

‘Duty of care’ is a term they use in banking. Well, they have no duty of care at all… We are the innocent victims of all this. It totally ruined our lives.’

He added: ‘We have a decent apartment, but it’s not ours and our furniture is still in storage, because we can’t find a house to put it in – and that also costs money.

“And if this landlord suddenly said, ‘I’m sorry, that’s the end now. You have to go,’ I don’t really know where we would go or what we would do.”

Originally from East London, Mr. Lockett founded his company Finnchalet Holidays in 1979, offering bespoke tours of Scandinavia and Northern England.

He married his wife Lea, originally from Finland, in 1986, who then moved to Perthshire where the couple lived and jointly ran the business.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Lockett said that RBS had made several mistakes with the company’s accounting.

These included double-paid standing orders, the payment of unnecessary direct debits, and the failure to charge some loan installments.

In 1993 Mr Lockett decided to sell the business as a going concern, as well as his property, to pay off the debts he owed to RBS, making an expected profit of £20,000.

He then moved into a rented house in Kent with Mrs. Lockett, where he had landed a new job with a tour company, but became concerned when he was never credited with the money.

He said: ‘I had a personal account for them and for my mortgage, and when everything was settled we never got an explanation from RBS as to what they had done with the money.

“We tried and tried and tried to get a meeting with them to find out where they stood, but nothing ever happened… We never got a dime from the house sale.”

Mr. Lockett instructed lawyers to investigate his case in 1998, but shockingly, a few years later the company was suspended by the Law Society for malpractice.

And he later found that the lawyers had misfiled his papers with the court, meaning any further action was now beyond the six-year legal limit.

He continued his claim, even receiving a letter from ex-CEO Fred Goodwin in September 2000 apologizing for several of the bank’s shortcomings.

But as of 2010, Mr Lockett said the couple had had a particularly hard time after their landlord decided to put their rented property on the market.

Mr Lockett said: ‘Our personal finances were absolutely ruined. At that point, between 60 and 70 years old, nobody wants to rent you out unless you have a huge down payment.

‘We then went through several self-catering rentals. We had about 11 properties in about six years.

“It was hard for my wife and me. It was difficult. It sucks when you come to the last phase of life and can’t have your own things around you.’

In 2011, his case was accepted by the Parliament’s Committee on Banking Standards, and following their report, he met with RBS in 2013.

But this produced nothing new and Mr Lockett was later accepted to testify at the All Party Parliamentary Group into Fair Business Banking (APPG) in 2018.

Mr Lockett said the committee had been unable to get RBS back to the negotiating table and that on their advice he had instructed a forensic lawyer to investigate the matter.

Menzies & Co LLP’s legal team then sent a report to RBS in early 2021, which estimated they were entitled to £20,481 following their 1994 home sale.

And taking this into account, and the possibility that the money could have been invested, the legal team suggested that RBS owed the Locketts £151,485.

But Mr Lockett said the bank had not acknowledged the report and even told him in May this year that they would stop responding to correspondence he sent them.

He now lives with Ms Lockett in a rented flat in Harrogate, North Yorks, and said the case showed consumers lacked power to challenge major banks.

He said: ‘My problem, besides being against RBS, is also against the financial systems in this country. Things can slip through the net, then there’s no one to help you.

‘You are on your own. Even that parliamentary faction – they worked very hard, it was a fantastic faction – but they couldn’t break the system themselves.’

A spokesman for RBS said: ‘Following a thorough internal investigation over a period of 30 years, an extensive dialogue with Mr Lockett and an external evaluation by the Ombudsman in 2011 that proved to be in the bank’s favour, we reject Mr. Lockett off.

“We have fully considered the Menzies report and determined that it does not contain any evidence that contradicts our findings to date.

‘In this case, the bank has fully complied with the legal requirements for record keeping.

“While we always strive to resolve outstanding issues for customers, unfortunately this is not always possible, and we have made the rare decision not to re-address this complaint unless new evidence is provided to us.”