Please help - Halifax error leaves us £000's worse off

pinkcheshirecat

Please could someone who knows more than we do help us out? I'm a newbie.

We recently applied to re-mortgage from Halifax - Our repayment figure is about £4k more than our mortgage statement was in July. We made a large overpayment on the mortgage in January and they haven't apparently added all the interest for last year? However - they have added a figure for interest with no hint of where they actually got the figure from it's £1300 v the £4500 they say it should have been.

I've made a complaint and it's taken them 10 days to get back to us - meanwhile the mortgage offer for the re-mortgage runs out on 4th October.

Please help - I've searched the internet over and over and can't find anything similar. We don't know what to do - If we proceed with the re-mortgage at the higher figure do we lose our chance to complain and be taken seriously?

I can't believe that they can legally issue a statement and then just decide it's wrong - if the new lender can't agree the increased loan or increase the product and we have to re-apply we'll be seriously worse off - are Halifax liable for this?

Any help at all would be really appreciated.

jonesMUFCforever

Mortgage statement July?
Is this the same as a redemption figure ??

If not you have just assumed that the July figure is right

pinkcheshirecat

Sorry - the mortgage statement for July 08 gave a figure to repay the mortgage at 31st July 08- The mortgage interest is shown as being added at 31st January 2008 so yes - we assumed that the mortgage statement in July was correct - we've made every payment and Halifax have agreed that they made an error - but suddenly we've got an extra few thousand to find.

Locoblade

Is the error that it was too low in July, or too high now? Which is the correct figure do you think?

pinkcheshirecat

The figure in July was 94507.55 - it is now 98373.08

Locoblade

Yup, but which one do you think/know is correct?

Are you sure they've not just added in an early redemption charge or something by mistake? Im assuming there aren't any ERCs if you remortgage at the date you want to?

pinkcheshirecat

I think the one from now is probably correct - the first time we had any idea that there was a problem was last week-surely a mortgage statement is a legal document - can they just take no care over things like this and then just expect us to stump up the cash with no way of checking they're right? this isn't the only error they made in the overpayment..... I just can't believe thay can send a statement that is wrong to the tune of £4k and just expect us to lump it.

dunstonh

Are you on a once a year adjustment or do your payments change every time there is a rate change?

My initial view based on very little fact being available here would be an ERC being added.

Locoblade

If you want to double check which one is right, you could put your existing mortgage details into my spreadsheet from when you last remortgaged (how much you borrowed and when, the rate, the monthly repayment, the overpayment in Jan etc), and that should give you a good idea of the real figure.

Although its undoubtedly come at an awkward time with the remortgage etc, if the latest one is indeed correct then I fear you've not really got a case. If your bank account statement suddenly showed a deposit of £4k that you knew hadn't gone in there, I don't think you'd grumble too much when they took it back again, and although a mortgage you don't necessarily keep track of day-to-day like you would a current account, its fundamentally the same thing. You may well be able to get some kind of compensation out of them for the inconvenience / hassle, but Im fairly sure they wouldnt swallow the £4k difference, or anything close

pinkcheshirecat

Sorry - I've obviously not explained things very well - I'm so cross I can't think straight.

There is an ERC on top of the figures quoted - it's about £1k - but as our product is due to finish at the end of september we won't have to pay this.

The problem stems from the fact that we made a significant overpayment in January. They didn't do the adjustment till sometime in Feb and they say that they didn't add the interest for the year when they did the adjustment. So - In Jan they added £1300ish in interest and say that they should have added £4.5k instead. They've offered no explanation of why they didn't add it or why they added £1300 instead, just that it was wrong. So - the actual figure has increased although we've missed no payments.

We applied for our new mortgage believing our mortgage statement to be correct, after all - if the mortgage company tells you that is what you owe - you believe them. It is only when we got the redemption figure that we found out that Halifax think we owe them more money than they thought we did in July.

pinkcheshirecat

Locoblade wrote: »

If you want to double check which one is right, you could put your existing mortgage details into my spreadsheet from when you last remortgaged (how much you borrowed and when, the rate, the monthly repayment, the overpayment in Jan etc), and that should give you a good idea of the real figure.

Although its undoubtedly come at an awkward time with the remortgage etc, if the latest one is indeed correct then I fear you've not really got a case. If your bank account statement suddenly showed a deposit of £4k that you knew hadn't gone in there, I don't think you'd grumble too much when they took it back again, and although a mortgage you don't necessarily keep track of day-to-day like you would a current account, its fundamentally the same thing. You may well be able to get some kind of compensation out of them for the inconvenience / hassle, but Im fairly sure they wouldnt swallow the £4k difference, or anything close

I just can't belive that they can be SO incompetent but we end up being the ones who carry the can. I'm genuinely worried that my re-mortgage is going to stall because of this and I just don't know what to do. I can't believe that they could or should make an error of this magnitude. If I incurr thousands in costs as the re-mortgage falls through how is that fair? I'm at the mortgage offer stage but reluctant to proceed as how do I know that they've got it right this time?