Unexpected last minute charges £800

dwsjarcmcd

Gloria,
Would be interested to hear the outcome. Good luck!

David

mrs_skint

Thanks dwsjarcmcd

I think I'll follow your advice. I'll let you know what happens!

mrs_skint

David

Have you any idea where I should start? Should I approach the brokers or the solicitors who dealt with my mortgage.

Many thanks

Gloria

dwsjarcmcd

I would make the complaint to the broker to start. Give them the oportunity to sort it out. I would do it by phone to start then follow up in writing. They will have a complaints procedure for you to follow.

David

mrs_skint

I got an answer from the brokers after emailing them this morning -

"We take complaints very seriously and I would like to resolve this situation for you as soon as possible with out further delay. The money that Mortgage Express has taken from you is beyond our control. When changing your mortgage from this lender they require a months notice or they will charge you a months intereest. We had given Mortgage Express more than a mths notice so this fee wouldn't apply. On speaking to the solicitor they have told me tha tthe months interest has been factored into the rdemption figure and you were told of this but you said you would like to complete as sonn as possible and you would claim this back from them at a later date. Based on this we completed the application.

As it was your decision to proceed knowing this fee would apply even if only for the short term your complaint is really with Mortgage Expresds and not us. However, what I will do for you is speak wto the solicitors and let them argue the case for you as it is them who have dealt with Mortgage Express on a daily basis and them who provided the notice period".

What should I do based on the above??

MarkyMarkD

Applying for a redemption quote does not constitute giving notice of redemption. Lots of mortgage borrowers request mortgage redemption quotes without proceeding to redeem.

It's not really clear from the tale you've told of whose fault the £800 charge is.

Both the brokers and the solicitors appear to have been aware of the fee, and I would have expected each of them to notify you of it and to get a firm completion date from you (with a month's notice) so that you could give the appropriate notice to the previous lender.

But, if the comment from your solicitors (via the brokers) is correct, you were told that the month's interest penalty would apply and still chose to complete. If that's the case, the fee is 100% down to you. I can't see why you would have said to the solicitors that you'd pay the fee "and claim this back from them" as there wouldn't have been any good reason for you to be able to claim it back.

Unless the solicitors are lying about you telling them to proceed, despite the £800, you aren't going to recover it.

Why on earth did you not defer completion for one month, once you became aware that you'd have to pay the 1 month's interest anyway?

mrs_skint

Bacause I needed to!

mrs_skint

Hi guys

I took David's advice and made a complaint to the brokers. Their solicitors looked into it and apparently they had asked for a redemption statement one month before - they sent me a copy of the letter. However, Mortgage Express wrote back and said that they didn't actually receive in writing one month's notice. It seems that despite them requesting redemption statments for over a month prior to complettion as they didn't actually state in the letter that they were giving them a month's notice then there is no compliance with the mortgage offer terms and conditions. They have now stated that there doesn't seem anything further that they can do. Any advice? They have passed the matter back to me.

Locoblade

Only commenting as a layman, but I'd say the solicitors are at least partly at fault here. It seems they've taken on the responsibility of writing to your mortgage company to give one month's notice but they haven't actually done that. Its not your fault they didn't word the letter correctly and didn't then check with the mortgage company that the notice of termination had been accepted.

arkie

If you speak to your broker, tell them you are going to cancel as you havent got the £800 if they dont reduce your fee take into the shortfall. If they dont, let another WOM broker look at your offer thus making sure the deal is still about and ask that broker to arrange the deal !!! I can bet you they will reduce the fee.
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