Reclaim natwest bank charges

kowalski808

Hi

I would be extremely grateful if anybody could provide me with advice concerning claiming my bank charges back from Natwest.

I am the sole earner supporting myself,partner and 2yr old son. The monthly income which I receive basically just about covers the monthly direct debits from the acc for mortgage, council tax, loans & utilities (if I'm lucky!). The all to common monthly cycle is that the payments & various charges are taken each month leaving me over the agreed overdraft limit (I am rarely in credit at all). This obviously results in further & incresing charges the next month & so the cycle continues.

The result of all this is that I am paid, it is all then taken and I have no money available for the next 4 weeks for the basics ie food & general everyday living, which obviously having a 2yr old son is devastating & V stressful. Then the everincreasing cycle continues!

I am about to send the financial hardship template letter detailing & plan to describe this situation along with a list of charges of approx £2000. I have letters from loan providers & council detailing non payment/arrears due to lack of funds which I will include also to strengthen my case.

can anyone confirm which natwest address I send this to? (registered I should think)

Also I am pre-empting that they will send me a income/expenditure form to evidence this situation, should I request one of these prior to sending my letter & include this with my request?

Any advice would be so very appreciated on this matter

natweststaffmember

kowalski808 wrote: »

Hi

I would be extremely grateful if anybody could provide me with advice concerning claiming my bank charges back from Natwest.

I am the sole earner supporting myself,partner and 2yr old son. The monthly income which I receive basically just about covers the monthly direct debits from the acc for mortgage, council tax, loans & utilities (if I'm lucky!). The all to common monthly cycle is that the payments & various charges are taken each month leaving me over the agreed overdraft limit (I am rarely in credit at all). This obviously results in further & incresing charges the next month & so the cycle continues.

The result of all this is that I am paid, it is all then taken and I have no money available for the next 4 weeks for the basics ie food & general everyday living, which obviously having a 2yr old son is devastating & V stressful. Then the everincreasing cycle continues!

I am about to send the financial hardship template letter detailing & plan to describe this situation along with a list of charges of approx £2000. I have letters from loan providers & council detailing non payment/arrears due to lack of funds which I will include also to strengthen my case.

can anyone confirm which natwest address I send this to? (registered I should think)

Also I am pre-empting that they will send me a income/expenditure form to evidence this situation, should I request one of these prior to sending my letter & include this with my request?

Any advice would be so very appreciated on this matter

You need to send an income and expenditure form as well to include household income.
I would say to you to use the template as a guide and not a simple fill in the blanks. you need to explain how the hardship began ie how you started getting charges. Explain the circumstances of your household so for example if partner lost job then that can explain why charges have been incurred. I personally think that if you ask them for a suspension of charges and interest for three months that you might get a positive response since I am not sure you have priority debt arrears(mortgage/rent, council tax, utilities).

kowalski808

Hi Natweststaffmember

Many thanks for taking the time to come back to me and providing me with your thoughts on this situation.

You confirm that the income/expenditure form will be a requirement factor for the bank, in order for them to consider and determine whether they agree that I am indeed in financial hardship. Is this a paticular form of the banks which I can phone and request they send to me? Or do I just have to clearly detail this information within my request letter to them ? Sorry to be pedantic...I am just determined to get this right!

With regards to the circumstances leading to my current financial situation. my income is required to support my partner and child along with myself, the amount coming in is not even enough to cover the mortgage, x3 loans, council tax and utilities let alone food and general basic living allowances. The main contributing factor leading to this situation is undoubtly the excessive borrowing which we have undertaken in a desperate bid to stay afloat. This has been an on-going cycle for approximately the past five years which has now reached a cresendo where we simply now do not have enough money for the required basic day to day living expenses; I believe this is a situation which has been furthered and encouraged by these excessive charges repeatedly levied upon us by this bank.

Apart from the lack of money for us to live on, we are now in arrears with council tax, x3 loans (2 of which are with this bank) and television provider; with no further money available now for 4 weeks, as the account is currently again £300 over the agreed overdraft limit, the forcast for next month when I do eventualy get paid is inevitably a repeat of this process; with I suspect additional and possibly increased charges. So regardless of whether I do manage to raise enough money in the meantime to cover next months direct debits, the bank charges which I suspect will be in the order of £200-£300 pounds will just serve to sustain this cycle.

Having researched the definition of financial hardship there does seem to be a bit of a grey area and difficulty in ascertaining exactly what the definition of this is and what the required supporting evidence would be. However surely the circumstances which I have described would be considered appropriately justified to claim to be in financial hardship?

Again I would be grateful for any further advice or thoughts on this matter.

Many thanks in advance

natweststaffmember

http://www.moneyadvicetrust.org/content.asp?ssid=38
The above is the Common financial Statement to include with your letter plus notices of arrears together with it. Send it to:

Customer Response Services Unit

1st Floor

Drummond House

1 Redheughs Avenue

Edinburgh

EH12 9JN

kowalski808

Many thanks for your response and the expenditure form that's really helpful. I'll most certainly use that along with my letter to them to help demonstrate my case.

I'll report back when I have had some sucess!

ccmug

I originally sent an income and expenditure report produced by CCCs but Natwest wanted their own form to be completed.

I've been waiting for 2 months for my hardship claim to be considered but my mortgage is with them so it has been passed to that department but not rejected yet.

kowalski808

Thanks CCMUG for your post, that's interesting to me as I am in a similar situation in that my morgate is also with this bank, so perhaps that does not bode well for my case?!

I will phone Natwest and ask them to clarify this matter for me.

You mention that your case has been passed to the natwest mortgage department for them to consider your claim; and determine if they agree that you are indeed in financial hard. Do you know if it is regular practice for the mortgage department to be responsible for deciding this?

natweststaffmember

kowalski808 wrote: »

Thanks CCMUG for your post, that's interesting to me as I am in a similar situation in that my morgate is also with this bank, so perhaps that does not bode well for my case?!

I will phone Natwest and ask them to clarify this matter for me.

You mention that your case has been passed to the natwest mortgage department for them to consider your claim; and determine if they agree that you are indeed in financial hard. Do you know if it is regular practice for the mortgage department to be responsible for deciding this?

They do not decide on Financial hardship cases with regards to bank charges.

ccmug

natweststaffmember wrote: »

They do not decide on Financial hardship cases with regards to bank charges.

Iwas informed yesterday by the Customer Response Services Unit at Drummond House that because I have a mortgage, it is the Mortgage Team that will make the decision.

I have found that when my account went into collections, and I phoned them as a result of a letter from them giving their number, that they could not deal with the matter because it was with the mortgage team. When I phoned the mortgage team I found that they didn't have a clue what I was talking about, so I closed my business account and moved my main personal banking elsewhere

natweststaffmember

ccmug wrote: »

Iwas informed yesterday by the Customer Response Services Unit at Drummond House that because I have a mortgage, it is the Mortgage Team that will make the decision.

I have found that when my account went into collections, and I phoned them as a result of a letter from them giving their number, that they could not deal with the matter because it was with the mortgage team. When I phoned the mortgage team I found that they didn't have a clue what I was talking about, so I closed my business account and moved my main personal banking elsewhere

Strange one really, all the info I have had from the customer relations manager at RBS Group is that it is the CSRU that make a decision on hardship based on receipt of all available paperwork. If the personal banking has been moved elsewhere and it was post the reclaiming of charges then the decision is in all likelihood gonna be a no.


EDIT: having thought about this one some more, I wonder whether they are requesting further information from NatWest Mortgage Services.

ccmug

natweststaffmember wrote: »

EDIT: having thought about this one some more, I wonder whether they are requesting further information from NatWest Mortgage Services.

I don't know, I can only relate what I was told by the lady at CSRU. I originally phoned a week last Friday and was told that it had been transferred to another department, she didn't say which, and that she would have to e-mail them for information. Having heard nothing for a week I called again this last Friday when I was given the information that I have related here. She did mention an offset loan, which I don't have, but I do have a Foundations Mortgage which is a tracker with flexible payment and withdrawal facilities. She was also specific that if you had a mortgage or an offset loan that the decision would be made by that department.