Unexpected last minute charges £800

Leon_W

Hmmm. An interesting one this.

As I read it, the (original) mortgage contract is between the existing company and the client, so, (as I see it) neither the solicitor or the broker can possibly give notice on it as it has nothing to do with them.

Is there a moral obligation ? I guess most experienced brokers would know that some companies have the one month/one months interest clause and would have confirmed this at the outset when initially enquiring what your redemption penalties were. However, if when asked you failed to provide full details of the redemption clauses then is it the brokers fault ?

Like I say, its a difficult one and I'm not wanting to start an argument, its just my two penneth.

Regards

mrs_skint

Yes, it is a difficult one and I don't want to argue either - I'm grateful for any advice to be honest. But what did I hand over £4k for??

tinkerbell84

I do feel for you Mrs Skint.

OH and I are completing on a re-mortgage on 1st October. There is no broker, so I rang the existing mortgage company last week to inform them and they remined me about the giving one month's notice. My letter will be with them by Monday so that we have met the terms and can complete as planned with our new mortgage.

I have never paid a broker to do anything for me (they've had commission on products when I have used one).

Locoblade

Leon_W wrote: »

I guess most experienced brokers would know that some companies have the one month/one months interest clause and would have confirmed this at the outset when initially enquiring what your redemption penalties were. However, if when asked you failed to provide full details of the redemption clauses then is it the brokers fault ?

Im not sure the broker asked for these details from the OP though? The way I see it, the broker claims they gave a month's notice to the previous lender, so Gloria would have no reason to doubt them. In hindsight it seems they only did this by requesting a balance statement, which does not constitute notice of cancellation therefore Gloria has been left with the option of completing late (presumably with financial implications) or paying the £800 fee and complete on the original day. If the broker was unable to and/or had no intention of giving notice to the previous lender, why did they claim to have given that notice?

Leon_W

Sorry Locoblade, as I re-read it, the brokers requested a redemption statement which is not the same as giving one months notice (in writing). I trust you agree that this written notice can only be given by the OP (who is a party to the contract) and not by the broker or solicitor.

So, on all acounts this written notice must be given by Mrs Skint.

The solicitors notified her that written notice had not been given and informed her of the penalty. Mrs Skint decided to complete on the mortgage anyway.

Now, this sounds like one of those half a dozen of one and half a dozen of the other type disagreements with neither seeing the others point of view. The OP obviously thinks that the broker gave notice (which he couldn't), the broker may think they had by requesting a statement perhaps. I don't know.

The fact remains that (according to the posts) she was given the option to give the required notice or complete, she chose the latter which does seem to be a bit strange as I can't see that by waiting for one extra month for the notice period would have penalised her that greatly.

Judging by the fee charged (which is ludicrous btw) there should be scope for some sort of compromise payment as others have mentioned.

Regards

Locoblade

Hi Leon

Although I largely agree with what you've said and I think accepting the completion on that day despite being told of the fee was a mistake, it just seems that the broker has tried to fob this off by claiming that despite them requesting a statement of balance (which they suggest should equate to a notice of cancellation) over a month back, the existing lender is still charging this fee. If they'd simply come back saying it was Mrs Skint's responsibility to know she needed to advise her existing lender, I would more agree that its a 50/50 situation. The fact that they tried to explain it away with the balance statement excuse seems like they know they're in the wrong and are trying to deflect the blame onto the existing lender.

Had they advised at the outset after doing a bit of research that there was a 1 month notice period or even simply told Mrs Skint to contact her existing lender to check for cancellation procedures as they would be unable to do this themselves, then I agree the onus would be on her, but it does seem that they've given the impression that they were handling the entire process when in fact they didnt/couldn't. The fact that you need to notify the existing lender may be obvious to some, but I think to the majority of us joe public wouldnt immediately think of this, and if a broker took on the business to transfer you to a new mortgage and were getting paid (silly amounts in this instance) for it, the least Id expect is for them to do as much as they can and let me know things I need to do myself to ensure a smooth transaction.

thenorthernmortgagemonkey

The dispute regarding the £800 penalty is purely between Mrs Skint and her existing mortgage lender.

Mrs Skint however should consider if she has been treated fairly by her broker, charging 4k for a remortgage? I fail to see the justification. The idea of a broker is to save you thousands not charge you thousands.

Mrs Skint - i would consider approaching your broker about refunding the majority of this fee. Failing that i would follow the complaints prodeduce on the back of the KeyFacts document they issued you.

Locoblade

thenorthernmortgagemonkey wrote: »

The dispute regarding the £800 penalty is purely between Mrs Skint and her existing mortgage lender.

Even if the actions of her broker caused the penalty to trigger? To give a more obvious example, if Mrs Skint was coming to the end of a 2 year fix that entailed an early redemption penalty if the mortgage was cleared before that 2 year period finished, but her broker mucked up and sent the funds a few days early so triggering the ERC, would this still be a dispute with the original lender?

In both instances Id go after the broker personally, the original lender has done nothing wrong.

thenorthernmortgagemonkey

Why would the broker be sending funds?

I dont think its a case of funds being sent early anyway to cause an ERC. Its because the 1 month notice wasnt given to the lender. The only person who can give the notice is Mrs Skint herself (im assuming the broker isnt a party to the mortgage agreement).

As a professional he should have asked for a copy of the orginal mortgage offer to tell Mrs skint what she had to do or at least asked her to call them with her intentions and see what she had to do that way. This is something i, and many others would do as part of the service but there is nothing the broker can be pulled up on, what i can see, by not giving the notice (as they are not able to do so).

MarkyMarkD

Thanks Leon for the comments.

I am glad that someone understands my point. The OP chose to incur the £800 penalty by choosing to stick to the original intended completion date, even though the cost of waiting until the month's notice expired would have been considerably less.

And the OP was required to give notice themselves.

All the solicitor should have done, is to notify the OP of the penalty. Which they did. And the OP chose to ignore that advice.

I can't see why anyone's at fault other than the OP, to be honest.