Mortgage Fee Advice

georgensteve

Hi Guys

I am hoping someone can advice me about the following..... My partner had really bad credit and was in debt left, right and centre. To ensure that his bills got paid appropriately I had everything come out of my bank account. There mortgage is with Rooftop and as a consequence of me paying the account from my account they charged £10.00 every time as it was not a direct debit and not in the mortgage holders name. We tried to get a DD set up into my account and they would not allow this to happen. Are they allowed to do this? In total it has mean't that we have now got an additional debt of about £1000 against the mortgage because of this with additional APR.

Thankfully my partner is back on an even keel and their mortgage is getting put into their own account again....yeah :T

Any advice would be gratefully recieved

Steve

happybroker

I'm surprised at them not letting you set up a ddm......as long as they get the money at the end of the day and you have to wonder how that fits in with their "Treating Customers Fairly" charter.

How about having an account with his name on it just for the ddm(s). Money could be put in their each month to cover the payments, no chq books or bank cards etc to avoid any confusion and happy days.

georgensteve

Happybroker

Thanks for the quick reply.

I have set up an account in their name now but feel the charges are unjustified. I didn't know if there was a means of complaining to them or what legislation i could use. I am in the process of acquiring the terms and conditions of the mortgage.

happybroker

Has to be worth a stamp to complain doesn't it? I would mention the fact that you cannot see how you guys ensuring they are paid on time and Rooftops refusal to allow you the ddm facility (thus incurring the £10 fee) is "treating you fairly" as pushing these sort of buttons may provoke a positive response but not necessarily.

Take it all the way aswell, ask that if they cannot agree to your request you want a letter confirming that you are in "deadlock" over your complaint so that you can refer it to FOS.

dunstonh

but feel the charges are unjustified.

To be honest, given the extra workload standing order takes over direct debit I think the fee is quite justified. Its a right pain to locate, match and allocate manual payments like that.

However, to then refuse direct debit which doesnt incur a charge doesnt seem fair. In a complaint I would point that out and state that its not treating customers fairly.

luckyfool

Is there not a reasonably Money Laundering argument that they should not be accepting direct debits from accounts not in the name of their customer? I think this is pretty common practice with many lenders.

A way round it would have been to do a standing order into your partners account a couple of days before the d/d was due to be collected, allowing Rooftop to take the money directly from their customer and avoiding all these fees.