Unfortunately, the "full and final" settlement is not necessarily final. I can't remember the details of this but the way the law interprets it is that the lender/lawyer is accepting a reduced settlement because it is not possible to get a final settlement and therefore they have the right to come back for more later.(posted 8076 days ago)There is a work around for this, which I think is to get a Deed of Satisfaction. But I need to learn more about these so I'm hoping somebody else will add more detail here.
I suspect you can also prevent future claims by wording your settlement offer to say that this offer is being made because the lender is refusing to prove the alleged claim and that it is unwilling to admit that it missold a MIG (if there was one involved). But I am speculating here.
Now, all this raises a question for people who have already settled, which is "will I be chased again?"
The answer is: we don't know. Most people I know of who have made a lump sum settlement have not been chased again.
However, I have several cases of people who settled with lenders (mainly Halifax and I think Mortgage Corporation, now called First Active) where the lender had claimed on an RSA (Royal & Sun Alliance) MIG. And RSA is chasing them for more.
For people whose MIG turns out to have been with RSA (serve a SARN on the lender to find out), investigation of the problems with full and final settlements is particularly important. They probably need about Deeds of Satisfaction.
There's a separate but related issue here, which is that I know of many cases where people agree to pay a certain amount per month in settlement. In almost all of these, the lender/lawyer asks the person to fill in a new income and expenditure forms every year or just asks for higher monthly payments. This is why I encourage no- one to make monthly payment offers.
Lee