Advice on changes to employment terms?

The_Governor

Hope this is the right board for this sort of query.

I should start by saying I'm not your average militant worker, I don't stick to my contract like glue or work only the hours I'm paid to. I'm pretty flexible about when I take holiday and so on.

However, my employer has decided to change the date we get paid on to the end of the month from the middle.

That in itself is okay, expect I have a 6 week gap between payments but it's not the end of the world, albeit quite inconvenient this close to Christmas...

The real problem is that as a result of this I have to change my mortgage date and I can't afford to make two payment in quick succession to get my mortgage on the new schedule.

So all I can do is skip Octobers payment, this then gets added back into my mortgage balance and then spread across the rest of the life of the mortgage (21 years plus a bit).

Essentially this means I have to pay an extra £10 a month from January 2007 for the rest of the term.

Now the helpful HR Manager says he can't see how this is financially penalising me despite me (twice!) explaining the maths to him. I think it's more that he doesn't want to understand rather than actually not getting it, he's not stupid.

Basically this will cost me £2520 more over the term of the mortgage, where do I stand with this?

Do I just have to suck it up and swallow it?

mountainofdebt

I think that if you change your mortgage payment from say the 15th of the month to the 28th of the month, the only extra amount you should be charged, in the month of the change, is the extra interest that has accured from the 15th to the 28th.

I am sure that when we changed our mortgage payment from the 20th to the 1st that's what happened and thus didn't have to pay 2 months payments in such a short time.

Don't like to ask this but have you actually checked the situation with your mortgage provider?

mountainofdebt

Also meant to ask why would you have to spread 1 missed mortgage payment over a 21 year period - surely your mortgage provider allows you make overpayments so it could be repaid over a shorter period of time, couldn't it???

Counting_Pennies_2

I definitely think you should speak to your mortgage company, but also I think you should speak with your line manager, to ask them to have a further word with HR and explain the situation again, and ask for an advance to cover the difference, obviously when you are paid properly on the new date, they will take into account the advance and balance it accordingly.

The_Governor

Sorry for any confusion guys/gals, I was trying to keep my post to the minimum of info so it wasn't too long

I have spoken to my provider and I'm in a fixed rate for 5 years with penalty clauses, so no payment holidays, if I bump it to the 28th of the month, because I will be getting paid at the end of each month it would mean for 11 months of the year I would be nursing an overdraft.

My provider (The Chelsea) can only let me make a payment between the 1st and 28th of each month because of the February effect.

I may be able to make overpayments at some point in the future yes, but in my current mortgage I get penalised for overpayments until the fixed rate finishes at the end next year.

This is made even more awkward because I'm a manager myself, so referring it upwards means I have to involve a Director, so before I do that I want to know where I stand.

Counting_Pennies_2

This is a situation the employer has created. Any reasonable employer will need to see the inconvenience they have created. Asking for the advance on what would have been your old pay day for the first month is not unreasonable.

Put down the details you have explained to us and speak to your director, saying you have spoken with HR on several occasions and that you don't want to rock the boat, but that you would appreciate their assistance.

I work in HR myself, and I don't see this as an unreasonable request. The problem is everyone is human, everyone has their cut off point, you may have got the person on a bad day, perhaps the world and his wife have been calling up complaining about the date of pay change and they have set down some guidelines on what is and isn't possible to do for staff. This doesn't mean they can't be flexible.

Also check your contract, if it states the pay day on it, you could have arguement that they need to honour this, for that first month for you while the transition occurs.

Hope this helps

The_Governor

As it happens this change only effects three of us (it's a bit convoluted but only our section is part of the larger Groups payroll, so I won't go into that).

We were Tupe'd across in April, when this came up purely as a result of me asking an off-the-cuff question, had I not it would just have happened without the payroll team thinking to notify us!

I've raised it repeatedly over the last 4 - 5 months and our HR mans tension is palpable every time, it's very much a feeling of "well you're on good money, stop moaning" rather than "we're causing you a financial loss on your mortgage so we'll sort it".

That said he is very careful to make the right noises.

I really don't mind the shift in date, it's the extra mortgage costs that I object to, as even if I left the company at some stage in the future I'm saddled with an ongoing extra payment.

His protestations that he doesn't understand the maths is a bit grating too, especially when it is an incredibly simple formula! i.e. Y x Z = X

Counting_Pennies_2

They need to be even more accommodating if it is TUPE. Go and speak with your director, or try a different HR manager, if there is one

They have to be flexible, end of story

mountainofdebt

RoyT wrote:

I have spoken to my provider and I'm in a fixed rate for 5 years with penalty clauses, so no payment holidays, if I bump it to the 28th of the month, because I will be getting paid at the end of each month it would mean for 11 months of the year I would be nursing an overdraft

My provider (The Chelsea) can only let me make a payment between the 1st and 28th of each month because of the February effect.

I may be able to make overpayments at some point in the future yes, but in my current mortgage I get penalised for overpayments until the fixed rate finishes at the end next year.

I would recheck with your mortgage company again about the effect of moving your payment date. I would be very surprised if you couldn't move your mortgage payment date to the 1st - so as you say effectively miss one month's paymemt and being unable make up that 'missed' payment by making overpayments. Many companies allow you make overpayments, even when tied into a deal, on a penalty free basis provided the overpayment doesn't exceed a certain level.....mine is 10% of the outstanding balance as at 31st December of the previous year.