Standard Life - MEAF

csrivats999

Hi all

I recently remortaged my mortage from Standard life to First active at the end of the fixed term with Standard Life.
I noticed that Standard life had charged me a £200 exit fee (or Redemption Discharge fee).
I wrote to them saying this was not mentioned in their contract and that I should not be charged at all as I am not breaking any contract.
They replied back it was stated in my contract etc and have asked me to write to the financial ombudsman if I am still unhappy.

I cannot see this on the contract which they sent me.

My question is is it worth writing to the financial ombudsman?
Has anyone got their money back on such a case?

Please help

Thanks in advance

Orford

My question is is it worth writing to the financial ombudsman?

It won't cost you anything, but if the FOS investigate your complaint it will cost SL £450

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

csrivats999

Really!..I was sent a leaflet and it said nothing abt the charge..very strange

Orford

The FOS don't charge complainants, but charge firms (banks, insurance, finance companies etc) £450 per complaint. Naturally the firms aren't going to advertsie that fact to claimants.

moneyexpertiwish

csrivats999 wrote: »

Hi all

I recently remortaged my mortage from Standard life to First active at the end of the fixed term with Standard Life.
I noticed that Standard life had charged me a £200 exit fee (or Redemption Discharge fee).
I wrote to them saying this was not mentioned in their contract and that I should not be charged at all as I am not breaking any contract.
They replied back it was stated in my contract etc and have asked me to write to the financial ombudsman if I am still unhappy.

I cannot see this on the contract which they sent me.

My question is is it worth writing to the financial ombudsman?
Has anyone got their money back on such a case?

Please help

Thanks in advance

There was a review by the FSA of Mortgage Exit Administration Fees quite recently. I think a ruling was put in place that stated companies had to quantify the cost of these fees for new customers after a certain date but were allowed to retain it for older mortgages.

I have a friend who also has an SL mortgage and they were talking about the fee when they were going to remortgage elsewhere. I checked up on my fee and we both had different figures (mine was shown on the mortgage offer document when taking out the mortgage) so I contacted SL to ask why.

The reason was given as follows, it differs because of the start date of your mortgage and the fee on your offer document at that time. For example, if SL charged a fee of £50 for mortgages starting in 2005 and charged a fee of £200 for mortgages starting in 2007. If a mortgage is redeemed that commenced in 2005 then the £50 fee would be charged.

If this fee is shown on your document then I don't think you have any grounds for a complaint. If you do then you should be able to get a refund.

You could contact SL and ask them for a copy of the document you signed and that will confirm if it had the fee on it or not.