Liability of intermediaries - Legal aid centre

Questioner

Good day, I have a question about how I can hold someone liable. Situation sketch In the first half of 2013, my mortgage with party A was paid off and I received a new mortgage with party B. Stater has always arranged the collection for party A. I received a balance statement from Stater of the savings value from one of the loans with party A when my mortgage with party A was repaid. However, Stater continued to collect the premium (repayment + insurance (while I have since taken out a new insurance policy with the intermediary)) until mid-2015. This savings value should have been transferred to party B (as a first deposit in my bank savings mortgage) when the previous mortgage was transferred. Early 2015 I contacted both party B and Stater about this. It was then stated that my intermediary should have arranged this. I have contacted my intermediary about this. I told him that I had previously told him that Stater kept collecting. Unfortunately, I cannot find out when that was. I suspect that this was done by telephone. What I can find is that in the second half of 2014 I asked via LinkedIn whether he had already taken action to correct this. At the beginning of 2015, I understood from both party B and Stater that it was no longer possible to contribute to a savings mortgage and that, moreover, the savings policy counts in box 3! The impact of the aforementioned is easy to guess. The required interest accrual in the savings policy has largely disappeared. Although I can use the savings policy to repay. Unfortunately, this does not balance out. The damage amounts to almost EUR 18,000 (according to my calculation). In my opinion this should not have happened and my intermediary should have observed the duty of care. After all, he was the specialist in this area. Furthermore, it is difficult to get my intermediary to take action to discuss one thing or another with the tax authorities or whether it is not possible to submit it after all. After repeated requests from my side, nothing has been arranged yet. I am now wondering what I can do. My intermediary is not affiliated with a trade association as far as I can tell. In a telephone conversation in which I suggested to him to talk about the damage, he responded that he only wants to do that after he has tried to arrange everything. But as I said, he is not making much progress. Should I hold him liable now? Can I do that myself, or do I need a lawyer? I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks in advance!

Lawyer

You can hold him liable yourself, but as a rule it is better to have this done through a lawyer. These are generally not the costs and it must be well worded. If he does not respond in time and refuses to compensate your damages, you will have to take legal action. If you approach me directly, we may be able to make further arrangements to deal with this.

Lawyer

From your explanation I gather that the intermediary has dropped stitches and thus breached his duty of care. He should have taken timely action to limit the damage, assuming that your message reached him. If it has been established that he was negligent, you can indeed hold him liable. However, I advise you to have this done through a lawyer in order to increase the pressure somewhat. If desired, you can contact me directly and free of charge for further assistance.