How do I prove mis-sold PPI from a long time ago?

With billions of pounds being paid out in personal protection insurance since 2011, consumers are enjoying small windfalls on the mis-selling of protection schemes.

However, the vast majority of these claims have been made in the past decade, and as anyone who has taken out a PPI claim knows, your credit history only goes back so far. In most cases, the records go back just enough, but countless numbers of the British public maybe missing out on tens of thousands of pounds in mis-sold PPI.

The official cut off point for lenders to hold on to records is six years. Anything longer than this can prove problematic for anyone making a claim.

Mortgages that were taken out twenty years ago, paid up and closed have been causing a headache for a number of people across the UK, who closed their accounts so long ago, they have even forgotten who their lender was.

These records do not appear on their credit history through the statute of limitations, records have been deleted, destroyed or forgotten about, and consumers are wondering what their options are.

According to the Citizens Advice Bureau, anyone looking to get more information on mortgages long forgotten about can get more information from the land registry who should have details on sales over the past century. However, getting a clear answer from them is not guaranteed.

Your next step is the Government’s land registry database, which you will be able to access in exchange for a few pounds. This registry documents lender’s history with properties they have agreed mortgages on. You should be able to trace your old address to the lender you borrowed from, and contact them to check their records for mis-sold PPI.

However, depending on the amount of time that has passed, there is no guarantee these records have been kept.

Despite this, the six-year cut off mark doesn’t necessarily mean all banks do away with records, and they may be sitting on data which may be a few decades old.

If you manage to find substantial proof that you were mis-sold PPI, you have until August 2019 to claim.