Re-mortgage Existing lender admin fees

brussels

For clarity, the £175 is for writing to the Land Registry about the deeds and closing the mortgage. Their original quotation stipulates £75 only and their General conditions booklet dated 2001 togetrher with the quotation does not mention that it is variable.

The Halifax have replied to my initial letter with a blanket statement explaining that the costs represent "labour, admin, technology and writing to the Land Registry" and lots of other standard blurb.

I have written again stipulating that if the costs is not reduced to a reasonable amount,say £95:00, I will proceed through the ombudsman/courts.

If anyone is interested, I'll post all updated correspondance between Halifax and myself.

Crispy_W

I went through exactly the same scenario with Halifax, quoting the same figures as you have noted. I started a thread about it entitled 'admin fee or exit penalty', last post dated 2/4/06. http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=162093

To cut a long story short, I argued that the increase in no way reflected any increase in admin costs, but was in fact introducing an exit penalty. I made clear that I was not adverse to paying the £75 as agreed at the outset, but that the increase was unreasonable.

We exchanged letters a couple of times and Halifax stated that they believed the charge to be reasonable and within industry guidelines etc, and I finished by saying that I would refer the matter to the Financial Services Ombudsman for its decision as to whether the increase was justifiable.

I received a letter offering a full refund of the £175. They defended the admin charge, but used previous issues we had regarding shoddy customer service as the reason for the refund.

As we were no longer customers at this point I consider this doubtful.

Go for it and good luck

Crispy_W

Brussels

While I was going through the process of switching mortgages, I happened to read an article in the Daily Telegraph reporting that the Financial Standards Watchdog was unhappy about banks introducing exit penalties to customers switching mortgages, and calling them administration fees. The problem is not with exit penalties as such. Banks are free to levy these as they wish, but they must be agreed in advance, and described as 'Exit Penalties'. An administration fee must reflect the administration costs incurred in switching the mortgage.

The lenders are apparently keen to settle any determined attempt for a refund, rather than make the Ombudsman make a ruling which could lead to an avalanche of claims.

This article was published in the Money section of the paper published on 24th January this year. I will geton to the telegraph site and try to provide a link.

It contains the line ' the message to borrowers hit by inflated fees is therefore clear, do not suffer in silence, be prepared to haggle.

Worked for me!

dreamylittledream

pingu wrote:

Abbey want £225 from me

took tracker mortgage 2 years ago feb2004

can't see anywhere on quotions they gave me £225 i am going to write to them to see what they say

Deeds release fee at Abbey was £95 until about a year ago.

It did mention in the very small print of the old quotation that the fee is variable however...

brussels

Prior to reading Crispy Ws' reply , the Halifax contacted me by telephone to see if I would accept them waiving £100, making the repayment administartion charge £75 which was the fee when I took out the mortgage in 2001. I suppose I could have argued for more, but wa shappy to pay this amount.

In basically told the Halifax that the fee had become a penalty to make it more difficult to move mortgage and that I would be contacting the Ombudsman or making a claim through the courts.

Its plain to see that Halifax (and probably others) are attempting to rob people under the guise of an admin charge.

Thanks for all of the advice.

firstfootontheladder

Ive just been reading through my KFI sheet & Have seen this,

lender conveyancing fee, payable on completion, refundable "no",

a non refundable legal fee to your conveyancer for work carried out on our behalf, the figure is an estimate!! :eek: total £161.27

so can i assume this is my break away fee, which no doubt can rise at anytime they like?

thanks to all who reply :-)

Woby_Tide

that's the fee for the legal work when you take out the mortgage, not finish the mortgage. Completion is the day you move house and the mortgage money gets paid

Ian_W

No you're mixing two things up I think. When you buy your lawyer acts for the lender as well as you, you pay the BS/Bank's cost for this at the time you buy. It's added to the loan by the sound of it.

If you want to leave/remortgage at the end of a fixed/variable deal the lender has a charge for the work they do to redeem the mortgage, check you KFI and look for "deeds release" "mortgage redemption" "sealing fees" - those are the common names.

Lenders have hiked these in recent years from £50-100 average to £2-300 average with A&L being the highest and first I think. NW are an honourable exeption at about £90 along with a few other lenders. The argument is when they hike these during the course of a fixed deal they are unfair. Read the quoted threads above for more info and check out what your quoted one is.

HelpWhereIcan

firstfootontheladder wrote:

Ive just been reading through my KFI sheet & Have seen this,

lender conveyancing fee, payable on completion, refundable "no",

a non refundable legal fee to your conveyancer for work carried out on our behalf, the figure is an estimate!! :eek: total £161.27

so can i assume this is my break away fee, which no doubt can rise at anytime they like?

thanks to all who reply :-)

This is actually a statement that the FSA asked to be included on all mortgage illustrations. It is intended to make you aware that the solicitor who handles your remortgage/purchase also does some work for the lender. This will normally be the checking of title etc and that you have satisfied any conditions of the mortgage offer.

This is not a fee on top of any legal fees you may already have agreed and will be 'included' in the cost your solicitor has quoted you (or included if you have a free legals deal). eg. if you have been quoted £300 to deal with your remortgage by the solicitor, this is saying that £161 of that £300 is being paid to them to do work on behalf of your new lender. Problem is the figures the lenders quote tend to vary immensley and rarely match reality.

This, combined with the fact that the (FSA prescribed) wording of this statement is unclear, causes a lot of confusion especially as it is shown in the 'fees you must pay' section of the illustration.

So the quick answer is, no, it is not another fee that you have to pay at any time. However, if you are re-mortgaging to the Abbey on one of their no fee deals, you will find that you have to refund them a similar amount if you leave within 2 years, but this should be shown in the early repayment charge section (section 10) and not (as it seems from your description) in section 8 (what fees must you pay).

firstfootontheladder

thanks for the replys,

just for info the deeds release fee on my KFI sheet is £50 Payable on completion, my guess is that by the time my 2yr fix is up that price will rise too.