Reclaim Mortgage Arrears Charges. NEW CAMPAIGN.

Very interesting. Is there a time limit to claiming back these charges (say 6 years as in the bank charges cases)?

EDIT: Laziness on my part - just checked the SAR letter so it is 6 years in England and Wales, 5 years in Scotland.

I love all these things people can claim back! I have just forwarded this info to my mother-in-law who had a few problems with GMAC recently...

What other unfair charges are there we can refund?!

Credit cards, bank charges, mortgage exit fees, mortgage charges and ...?!!:beer:

Ok, so how would she find out..?

toonfish wrote: »

I wish you would start a campaign to stop folk blaming everybody else when they aren't able to manage their own finances.

I partially agree but remember this doesnt apply to everyone, I used to do a lot of work with reposession clients and whilst some have blatantly neglected their finances and were 100% responsible for their own mess, there were some very sad and genuine cases as well. One such case was a lady who lost a pregnancy at 28 weeks and whilst in hospital developed MRSA - MPPI wouldnt pay out as pregnancy related, husband left her, reposessed, died 9 months later.

Try to keep an open mind where reposessions are concerned, not everybody is responsible and some people are dealt a bad hand in life.

WOW - OFT are going to have a busy xmas aren't they.

I have personally never seen it to be a claimable amount because they are admin charges and not penalty charges as Dunsotn has said.

There could be an argument there though as just because the banks call it an admin charge, doesn't mean it cannot be a penalty charge. The banks do not decide this point, the law does.

The process of a borrower failing to pay their monthly repayment, will often result in a letter going out and if they fail to make the next one, there will be letters and telephone calls etc.

My thoughts would be that if someone had missed just 1 payment, the admin charge may be deemed as a penalty charge as the work involved clearly does not cost the charges that are applied, however, where people are 3+ months in arrears then there will be phone calls being made etc and that cost will become more justifiable.

Exceptions may be with those lenders that charge for the phone calls but I believe they are restrained to the sub-prime lenders.

I cannot see any claims being allowed for court fees, solicitors fees etc as this was for work done and not penalty charges.

At the end of the day, it is what Martin makes his name doing, fighting for the financially unaware or in some cases the financially ignorant.

It will be interesting to see what happens when the lenders use the breach of contract argument that was used in some of the bank claims.

If a lender decides that if any of their customers are not happy with their charging structure, it will be deemed as they no longer accept the terms and conditions on their mortgage. Where legally do the banks and the customers stand. With bank accounts, they just gave them 30 days to move accounts but I am not sure whether it will or will not be that easy for the lenders to say - go and get a mortgage elsewhere.