Payment Holidays?

chris1951_2

I am not sure if this is the correct forum for this, if not, can someone direct my to it please?

I have an HSBC Bank Plc mortgage. In February I went into hospital for a minor operation on my knee and should have been off work for about 3 or 4 weeks. Unfortunately, the operation was not a success and I was unable to return to work as planned. My employer was very good about the time off, but as time went on I knew my pay would be cut. I wrote to HSBC Mortgage Services at the end of March explaining the situation and asked for a 3 month payment holiday on my mortgage.
I did not receive a reply, but when the April due date came around, no payment was taken by the direct debit. No payments were taken in May or June either.
The week before I was due to return to work, I was rushed into hospital for an emergency operation and was signed off work for a further 4 weeks. I wrote to HSBC Mortgage Service again, explaining that I was now on half pay and would not be back to work until the middle of July and although they had not replied to my first letter, I was very grateful that they responded favourably to my request for a 3 month payment holiday for April, May and June. Could they possible extend the payment holiday another month?
Light blue touch paper and step back. The day after the letter was received, a Wednesday, I was telephoned by HSBC Mortgage Services who told me I was in arrears and to contact my local branch ASAP! A few minutes after I put the phone down, my local branch called me. The woman asked some questions and then said she would have to speak to the manager. I said that I had written to HSBC in good faith and no payments had been taken as I requested, so how on earth did I end up in arrears? She replied that someone would call me back on Friday.
Friday came and went without any contact and the mortgage was taken out by direct debit on the due date. There were insufficient funds in the account to cover the full payment, but HSBC automatically increased my overdraft to make the payment possible.
I had no contact from HSBC, neither the local branch nor the mortgage centre, until last week when I received a letter from the mortgage centre saying despite their previous letters, I was seriously in arrears and I must contact then immediately. I wrote back, saying I had written to HSBC in March and although I did not receive a reply, no mortgage payments were taken by the direct debit which was still up and running. If they were now saying I was in arrears, why was I not told about this earlier? Could I also have a copy of the letters they claimed they had sent to me as I had received nothing from them until this one. I sent it by special delivery.
I was telephoned yesterday by the mortgage centre. The person admitted that they were in the wrong and should have told me they no longer do payment holidays. She admitted that my original letter had been received and passed to my local branch, who then requested them to suspend payments for 3 months. She said that my local branch “may not have known that payment holidays were no longer granted" (??), but refused to place the blame with them. She admitted that there were no ‘previous letters’ sent by them and agreed that they should have told me at the time of my original letter that I would be going into arrears. However, I must arrange with her how I was going to repay the arrears, which could be spread over 3 years! She then went on to say that I now had a negative credit entry against my name!
I was not a happy bunny and said so. I said that if HSBC had told me back in March that I would end up in arrears, with all the problems that creates, I would have had the chance to do something about it. It was unreasonable to wait 3 months before telling me! She replied that she “knew how I felt, and yes, they should have told me earlier”, but I must still repay the arrears.
I said I would take advice and get back to her.
Sorry about the length of this post, but you now have all the information. Any advice welcome.

skippy64

I can't give any advice as to the best way to take a complaint to a higher level but one thing that springs to mind is that in your converstaions on the telephone so far do you know if it was a recorded conversation at their end so at least you know you can challenge them on the statements/admissions they have made so far verbally to you. I don't know what the procedure is to get transcripts but I'm sure based on what you say so far its information that would be important in an officail complaint.:think: