Are Banks Obligated to Let us Access our money

dan_boy

Hi

Didnt know if anybody could shed any light on this one, if we put a lot of money into a bank account and lock this away for 6 months and receive interest, but now, considering what is going on in the market place we wish to have access to this money and withdraw some, only keeping the £35,000 in there but the bank say we cannot access it under any circumstances, is there anything at all that can be done to force them to allow us access to our money.

Regards

D.

Baldur

What did the terms & conditions of the account say? Your words "lock this away for 6 months" would imply that you were aware that you would be unable to access the funds during the 6 month term of the account.

opinions4u

If the T&C say no, then they can enforce them.

Some accounts will allow access with a nasty penalty.

Hungerdunger

Sorry, I don't have much sympathy. If you choose to tie up your money for a specified period in order to get a preferential interest rate, you should realise that you will be bound by the Ts and Cs.

But as the others have already suggested, look at the Ts and Cs. I've got several fixed rate accounts. One doesn't allow withdrawals at all, others allow closure with loss of interest, and one will allow me one withdrawal up to 10% of the amount saved. On a brighter note, they all say the account can be closed without penalty on the death of the account holder.

Masomnia

It's just been announced that the deposit protection is going up to £50k. Don't know if that changes anything for you.

Money_Grabber13579

You also didn't say which bank you had this investment with, however I would reckon if its a British bank, you'll be safe enough even if you are over the 35k limit, since if it ever went that far, the country would be finished! Hence, I think its very unlikely that this guarantee will ever have to be excerised.