Unexpected last minute charges £800

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.
In my business , my solicitor gives the lender the notice and aviods the penalty .

mrs_skint

Hi Arkie, unfortunately I can't cancel as everything has been completed. Solicitors et al have been paid (big time!)

Locoblade - that's exactly what has happened, except the solicitors don't want to have anything more to do with it. Who can I approach now? Any advice?

By the way, thanks to everyone who have advised me - I've taken some of your advice and have at least started to get answers! Even though it's gonna be a bit of a fight, out of principle I'm not giving up!!

mrs_skint

Writing a letter to solicitors at the minute but as they've washed their hands of it, who could I cc. the letter to? Sorry, am a bit of a novice so don't actually know who I can turn to next. Any ideas?

Thx

Gloria

Locoblade

Ive Ive understood it correctly, I think you should continue complaining to the brokers and not the solicitors, as your contract is with them, not their solicitors.

Can you just confirm though, that at no point until the day before completion did the broker inform you that a month's notice hadn't been given and that you'd incur an additional fee? If that's correct, then it sounds like they only found out their error when they were preparing to transfer the money to your previous lender, and are now wriggling to get out of it.

I'd write to the broker again asking them what actions they took to ensure that a month's notice was given to your previous broker, because simply asking for a statement as they claimed to do does not constitute giving notice, and they should have been well aware of this. After all, you're paying (handsomely) for them to be aware of such things to ensure the remortgage goes through smoothly.

I'd then ask them how they feel this is your fault and why they feel you should pay the fee? They took on the responsibility of informing your previous lender that you intended to cancel (they never asked you to do this), so they should shoulder the responsibility of getting this wrong. You had no choice but to complete on the day given, and by only informing you of the additional fee the day before completion, they gave you no time to consider your options or find out why this situation had occured.

Good luck

MarkyMarkD

Locoblade wrote: »

You had no choice but to complete on the day given, and by only informing you of the additional fee the day before completion, they gave you no time to consider your options or find out why this situation had occured.

I simply don't get this comment, locoblade, and I don't think Gloria's answered it either.

Why did she have to complete on the date that incurred the penalty? A remortgage offer is valid for a number of months, not simply for a day.

mrs_skint

Thanks Locoblade. Hi MarkyMarkD. I know that a remortgage offer is valid for a couple of months and I did have that option, but to be honest when I first approached the broker I made it clear that we wanted to complete by the beginning of August. I also emailed them (I have kept my emails) more than once to please check that everything is going ahead smoothly and that there weren't any additional charges that I would have to pay. I even asked them for a breakdown of fees to brokers, solicitors, valuation etc so that I could work out my finances. I don't see why I should have had to wait another month, in fact, for financial reasons, I had to complete by beginning of August and I paid a lot of money to do that.

mrs_skint

p.s. Does anyone know if I can go to the small claims court if I don't get anywhere with the brokers/solicitors?

happybroker

In your quote from the Broker it says that they gave Mortgage Express "more than 1 months notice". If they have done this then the fee shouldn't have been charged, if they haven't done this then they should have done and they are lying to you.

Your complaint lies with the broker and no one else. Look at the initial disclosure document they gave you right at the start of this process and there will be a complaints procedure. Write letters as opposed to emails and send recorded, keeping copies. Make sure you ask for all responses to your complaint to be put in writing so you have a hard copy.

The sort of company who charge £4000 will imho probably not want the fsa sniffing around so make mention of your intention to take this all the way if you don't get satisfaction.

mrs_skint

Thank you happy broker, I didn't think of the fsa! (do'h) I'll do that and let you know what happens.

Thanks again

Gloria

Locoblade

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

I simply don't get this comment, locoblade, and I don't think Gloria's answered it either.

Why did she have to complete on the date that incurred the penalty? A remortgage offer is valid for a number of months, not simply for a day.

I was only making comment based on what was said previously, that completion needed to be made by a specific date. I agree Gloria perhaps didn't HAVE to complete that day, but its quite likely that by completing at a later date, there would have been a financial implication (higher rates on the existing mortgae etc), hence her eagerness to complete that day. Perhaps at that point Gloria should have weighed up the additional costs of not completing with the additional charge and the likelyhood of recovering that charge, but frankly she should never been put in that position if the broker had done their job properly.