Northern Rock require Affordability check before you can Borrow back your own money

simon-rugby

Has anybody else run in to this and found a way around it?

Since the interest rates plummeted late last year I have been putting all my savings in to my Northern Rock mortgage as overpayments. By reducing the month interest payments this effectively gave me a savings rate of over 4% etc.

When I started doing this in January I called Northern Rock and made doubly sure that I could withdraw any or all of my money at any time without any problem. They confirmed that it was fine. I also pointed out at the time that I was not working as I’d been made redundant and they said as long as I was keeping up my mortgage payments that would not make any difference at all. So I was reassured and happy.

At that point I cleared out my wife and my own ISA's, and savings account and dropped it all in the mortgage account. No probs. Fast forward to now, I'm now doing some contract work and had some more money to save so this week I dropped another few thousand on the mortgage account and called today to confirm it had arrived ok and it had.

HOWEVER, the lady mentioned in passing that I could have it back any time I like subject to an affordability check. I queried what that was and she said that before I can have my money back (they call it 'Borrow back') I would have to pass an affordability check which means that look at my income, outgoings etc. I pointed out that I was never told about this, they said they can make the change it was in my original mortgage agreement. However the agreement doesn't mention this and the website even now says you can borrowback your overpayments at any time...

They have all my savings from the last 10 years, to me it’s a lot of money and I do have plans for that money, but now I have potentially locked it in to my house! I've asked for all my money back and am waiting for /their/ decision...

So has anybody come up against this and got their money back?
Can they do this legally? Can I fight them, how do I fight them?
Simon

Berkshiregirl

Hi

There have been several threads on this - it seems it was always on the small print and they're now enforcing it.

serendipity25

Hi Simon,
I am in the process of trying to borrow back some funds and was wondering how you got on with them?
Any advice would be hugely appreciated.