Natwest have just pulled my offset credit line

Thrugelmir

cazuk wrote: »

Guys, just wanted to update you all to give some bit of hope, unsure if I've just got lucky by having a strong account manager but having sent in requested invoices/payment schedules on Tuesday to both the foundations appeal team and my account manager I have had my credit line restored to a more reasonable level.

I hope the rest of you have the same luck

and as a taxpayer with a major stake in the bank. You can also sleep well knowing that the bank is reining in the excesses of the past.

The people that quite rightly will get upset about the change in the facility are those that use it. I wonder how many actually do on a regular basis though. With the current economic situation whether RBS took this action to reduce exposure. As I assume that no repayment vehicle is required to be in place to discharge the debt.

nwgibbs

Got my undated standard letter today it seems as part of their "ongoing committment to customers" they have reduced my facility by £100K! Its a joke. Complained like rest of you looks like will fall on deaf ears-I thought we owned this bank??
CAN YOU SEND ME ANY LINKS to complaint lines so I can add weight to our campaign?
Norman Gibbs

kmmr

PROPERTYMAN wrote: »

I'm consulting a lawyer to see if there is any likelihood of reversing this action.

I would expect they have covered themselves legally - I would suggest you go down the Ombudsman/FSA route. I think there is a clear breach of the TCF principles, and I would suggest you ask if the firm cleared this action with their supervisor before they did it.

There is plenty of pressure on banks to improve their balance sheets, but to not even give you the chance to remove the offseting amount before withdrawing the facility seems to go against principles of fair play.

russp

There is a new offer on the table from NatWest today. You can remortgage to a new product just for us foundation customers. It offers the same credit line as before, no fees and minimal underwriting, fixed @ 1% above banks base rate for term of mortgage. The only thing different is that you are not able to use like before. If you make overpayments you will have those monies locked in.

You can apply for increase in facility in time but the extra borrowing will be at a different rate. You can also move this product to a new property, but agian additional monies will be at a different rate.

They are agreeing to set the new mortgage at your previously agreed limit. The foundations mortgage will be closed and the excess funds (ie all the overpayments) will be transfered to your current account, or the account you normally pay the mortgage from.

This will allow those who need the money to be liquid to get it back. The bank are offering a savings account, e-savers plus. You can apply on-line, or if you have a relationship manager he/she can do for you. If you transfer you excess into this account and dont touch you it you get a better interest rate from them. The interest rate payable is more than we are paying for the mortgage borrowing. This I feel is a fair offer, and although not perfect a compromise, I can live with if it means i can get my cash liquid again.

I have asked many questions and it seems that if you decide to hold on to your foundations mortgage and start overpaying again there is the very strong possibilty that the bank will review and lower your limit again. They are not able to tell me when this will happen, only that it will happen.

The bank have said that they have acted to all our complaints and came up with this new offer to try and help all affected customers.

I for one have taken the offer. Just means that I have to think more carefully where I put any spare money, but at least it will be liquid again. The time scale is about 7-14 days but they could not give an exact time line as they have not done this before. Either way, if I know it is getting released I can at least sleep at nights without the thought of our truly wonderful HMRC breathing down my neck for late/none payment.

Please note that this information is what I have been told and have done. Please call the bank to make your own mind up and decide based on the info they offer you. The siutation for some of us is clearly critical, you must make your own decision as to what path to take. I have choosen the compromised route so that I am able to continue my business and life as normal. I thought long and hard about fighting this all the way and decided that I had too much to lose if it all went wrong. Conversations I have had with my lawyers led me to believe that there is a case for natwest to answer, but as with any legal proceedings, you may lose..

All the best and i hope that you are all able to sort this mess out.

Trollfever

Conversations I have had with my lawyers led me to believe that there is a case for natwest to answer, but as with any legal proceedings, you may lose.

And legal action can take years to resolve!

nwgibbs

Can you give me trouble shooter link? I will contact them as well
norman

notnatwest wrote: »

this is a copy of a letter sent to the trouble shooter at the times online, you may also wish to contact them ..... See if they will run with the story.

We have a natwest flexible mortgage account, where the interest is set at 1% above bank base rate for the entire life of the mortgage. The mortgage was sold as offering easy access to borrowing, since the credit limit is set at the outset, with no need for special arrangements to borrow more.

We have stuck with this facility through periods of high interest rates (when our neighbours were enjoying the benefit of fixed rates) because we wanted to manage the interest risk, rather than allow the bank to charge us a premium for doing so. We have met all minimum monthly payments and have a flawless payment record with natwest.

Today we received a letter (like many other foundations mortgage account holders) advising us that our maximum borrowing had been unilaterally amended downwards to £10,000 over our current loan outstanding. We had previously been able to borrow up to 90% of the property value (£xxx,000) and to raise the borrowing back up to that level at any time during the life of the mortgage.

We had transfered our savings into this mortgage account on a temporary basis to reduce our mortgage costs, safe in the knowledge that we could withdraw these savings at any time, at no cost. Our savings are now illiquid, locked into our property.

The 'product' was sold as a premium product, initially only available to (high net worth) premier customers - we understand that other customers have put aside funds for vat / tax and other business expenses and are faced overnight with severe cash flow difficulties - so much for the bank honouring the governments commitment to make finance available for small business (did i forget, we tax payers have majority ownership of the bank?)

we have lodged a complaint with natwest (as have fellow customers - see moneysavingexpert web site), however, we were told that the decision was taken by the board and that there is nothing we can do about it.

We believe that natwest have acted
(i) unreasonably,
(ii) against the spirit of the agreement and
(iii) in contradiction of the sales advice given to us (see company press release at worldwideweb dot prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=20918 for details.)

can you help us in this matter?

nwgibbs

HI can you give me any links to complain to? Times/Mail telegraph etc?
Norman

TighterThanTwoCoatsOfPain

Hi, i'm not familier with this specific product, but the title says "Offset" funds removed..

Are you saying you have a Savings account which is offset against the larger mortgage debt, as from the thread it actually sounds like the mortgage is effectively a massive overdraft and not offset at all?

Also, what sort of sums are we talking here? As to whether or not is is "Fair" for them to have done this very much depends on what the Credit Limit is in relation to your income, and whilst i may have missed it, i dont see that mentioned anywhere..

Hope you guys get it sorted..

NotNatWest

nwgibbs wrote: »

HI can you give me any links to complain to? Times/Mail telegraph etc?
Norman

Hi NW and all...
Its not that easy to put links on here but these are the ones to try all start with www.

Mail online is
dailymail.co.uk/money/

Times online is
timesonline.co.uk/tol/system/topicRoot/Troubleshooter/

BBC Radio 4 Moneybox
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/8409373.stm
Please note this one starts in Http://

Hope it helps we need to make some noise here, PS it was us interviewed on the moneybox program .... Its a pretty good item and is on again on Wed or you can hear it on Iplayer

NotNatWest

Kavanne wrote: »

NotNatWest, have you called and spoken to anyone at FOS yet? Do they think you might have a case with them?

I'm just thinking that the bank usually does think about the potential FOS issues before they make moves like this....

Their consumer helpline number is here: financial-ombudsman.org.uk/contact/index.html

Thanks for the link Kavanne, we have been told that they will not address the issue until we have a final "compliant not resolved" letter from RBS .... awaiting it in the post ....