Yorkshire Building Society !!!!-up??

scootsmith

My fixed rate deal was coming to an end and was supposed to be transfered on to a variable rate at 0.75% above the base interest rate. Saving me a fair bit of money a month. I phoned the Yorkshire to confirm the above, with plenty of time before my fixed rate ended.
However...I was informed that this was not the case and that the Yorkshire B Society minimum rate was "collared" at 3 something percent, adding on the 0.75 percent to this made really no difference to my monthly out goings. As you can imagine the deal that I though I was going to get for the last 5 years had just vanished and I was pretty annoyed to say the least!!:mad: So annoyed in fact that I phoned them again to speak to a different person to confirm the facts. This girl said she would look through my file to find out if this was the case and get back to me. This she did and again confirmed the collared rate. Me and my wife were both dissapointed by this and decided we might as well stick to another 5 year fixed. We arranged a visit to our local branch and signed up to another 5 year deal with out question at pretty much the same monthly payments. This was 2 weeks ago.

Guess what happened yesterday? A letter from the Yorkshire BS saying....."The interest rate you will pay on your mortgage, or part of it, from the 1st October 2010 will be 1.25%".

Now it appears that the info I based my decision to change mortgage deals on was lets say...not correct!! :mad: It is also costing me an extra £85 a month.

My questions are,

Where do I stand?
Am I tied to this new 5 yr deal or can I cancel it?
Are the Yorkshire liable/accountable for giving me the wrong advise?

I certainly know what I think but what about You. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Renfield

scootsmith wrote: »

Guess what happened yesterday? A letter from the Yorkshire BS saying....."The interest rate you will pay on your mortgage, or part of it, from the 1st October 2010 will be 1.25%".

Now it appears that the info I based my decision to change mortgage deals on was lets say...not correct!! :mad: It is also costing me an extra £85 a month.

My questions are,

Where do I stand?
Am I tied to this new 5 yr deal or can I cancel it?
Are the Yorkshire liable/accountable for giving me the wrong advise?

I certainly know what I think but what about You. Any thoughts are appreciated.

The new rate should not take effect till the old one finishes, which is 1st Oct, so you should be able to cancel.

Once that has been done, lodge a complaint, as you have been told wrong info, get get any fees refunded you paid for the new fixed rate. (assuming you cancel, there may not be any as you wont need a valuation etc)

Assuming you get the fees back, apart from the stress, you are not out of pocket, so a small bung for goodwill would be appreciated, but only if your up for the fight.

funscott

Im with YBS on the 0.75% offset tracker (same as you i expect) I started at 5.68% for first two years but when the Boe kept reducing i queried this with them. wheather i would go to 1.25% or not. from my understanding they made a c$ckup with their key facts for a couple of years which didnt state the collar so they had to ajust their interest as you would expect. however later they did start stating the 3% minimum collar but it was all down to when you took it out.

I would have a moan at YBS and try get soem cash out of them.

scootsmith

Thanks folks. Yes funscott It looks like the same deal except I was fixed for 5 years and that ends in October. I'll be right on the phone to the call centre and the branch as soon as they open. :mad:

slummymummyof3

Ah, we have just had a major arguement with YBS over the information provided over the phone too! We decided to go with them for a remortgage on a 5 year fixed @ 3.99% with product fees of £995, valuation of £290 and legal fees of £117. It now transpires that the legal fees are only THEIR legal fees and ours will cost us a minimum of another £400!!!!

We have filed a complaint as we were told legal fees would be £117 at no point were we told 'our legal fees will be £117 and you will need to appoint a conveyancer to act on your behalf'

We are now going with the HSBC and are awaiting to see if we will be refunded our £390 from YBS paid to date as we believe the information provided to us was misleading. We specifically asked them what were all of the costs involved in remortgaging to them.

luckyfool

slummymummyof3 wrote: »

Ah, we have just had a major arguement with YBS over the information provided over the phone too! We decided to go with them for a remortgage on a 5 year fixed @ 3.99% with product fees of £995, valuation of £290 and legal fees of £117. It now transpires that the legal fees are only THEIR legal fees and ours will cost us a minimum of another £400!!!!

We have filed a complaint as we were told legal fees would be £117 at no point were we told 'our legal fees will be £117 and you will need to appoint a conveyancer to act on your behalf'

We are now going with the HSBC and are awaiting to see if we will be refunded our £390 from YBS paid to date as we believe the information provided to us was misleading. We specifically asked them what were all of the costs involved in remortgaging to them.

On a Illustration for a remortgage where the lender is not providing a free legals package there is almost always a hypothetical "legal" fee quoted for the lenders part of the work. The wording is almost invariably that this is only to cover a part of the legal work and you should check with your solicitor to confirm any additional costs.

scootsmith

Got on the phone today and my situation is being looked at by the complaints department though thats not what they call it!!
Phoned my local branch and they have sorted it all out with no hassle. Credit to them. I won't be tied in to the higher fixed rate mortgage but can still fix later if needs be.


Thanks for the advice folks.

clarelb

Hi Scootsmith

Did you get anywhere with YBS re the enforcability of the collar?

We went through exactly the same situation with YBS last year. Our 5 year fix expired in May 2011 and we had assumed we would go to base + 0.75%. This was a reasonable assumption given that all online statements (which we tended to check on a weekly basis) and annual statements clearly stated (without reservation) that the rate would go to base + 0.75% at the end of the fixed term. This was also confirmed by YBS staff on a number of occasions.

However, when we checked a couple of months before the fixed term expired, we were suddenly told that a collar applied. Of course, when we went back and checked the Key Terms, we realised that they included a collar.

Unsurprisingly, we were exceedingly frustrated (to say the least) as we relied on the information provided by YBS over the 5 year term and we would have refixed with an alternative provider had we known about the collar. Now our circumstances our such that we cannot move to another mortgage company.

We have complained to the Ombudsman and await a decision but I don't hold out great hope. It seems that YBS has license to state any interest rate in information provided subsequent to the initial mortgage, with no duty of care to ensure that the information is correct and no penalty if a customer relies on such misinformation.

Would be interested to know if anyone else out there has had a similar experience.

Thrugelmir

Best to start a new thread. Than tag a post approaching 18 months old.

Klfale

Hi has anyone had any success with YBS in getting them to drop their rate and not impose the collar