Deferred Payment of Home Report.

Brazilio1975

Sorry if this is a bit long but it is best I include all details of my situation which is leading up to the problem which I am encountering.

As of this year 2010 my girlfriend and I had a baby, we are currently living together and as of April decided to stop renting out her old flat and attempt to sell it.

As we are in Edinburgh we needed to have a home report provided. We were not in a position to do this so having spoken to a local Estate Agent found a way that we could delay paying for this until we had sold the flat, or 9 months (a tmescale in which we were told we would easily sell the flat).

Having had a pretty dismal amount of viewers through the door and no bids whatsoever we find ourselves approaching the end of this 9 month period with no sale completed on the flat (we have dropped the price from £110,000 to £102,500, the lowest we can afford to go). We will obviously now be due to pay the home report and fees amounting to £3000.

Normally this would be a problem but a surmountable one, however in these last 6 months I have also been made redundant (third time in three years). Leaving us struggling to make ends meet anyway, but with this bill arriving in the next month leaving us in serious financial difficulty. I have since found out that the company who provide the funding for the Home Report are called 'Close Payment Services'. And further research tells me that not only will they want paid, they have the ability to go into my bank account and take the money, if the total amount is not there they take what is and go back a few weeks later and keep doing this until they have been paid.

I was obviously not informed of this tactic when I was advised to use this process, it is inevitably in the small print.

So I am looking for some advice, help or solutions or to see if anyone else has had a similar situation.

Failing that a £20k loan or this weeks winning lotto numbers would help me out of what has been financially a disastrous year.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to some responses.

G_M

further research tells me that not only will they want paid, they have the ability to go into my bank account and take the money,

I'm amazed by this. Highly unlikely. Where did you hear this?
They could only do this either
a) with your permission OR
b) with a court order

If they go to court for non payment, and win, and you still refuse to pay, THEN the court can give permission for this. Now maybe they have a reputation for following this process on defaulters, but you can argue in court against this and offer to pay on a weekly.monthly basis.

BitterAndTwisted

Get a new current account opened with a different bank and have whatever income you have paid into there. Close the account you are using now. This could defer the inevitable but perhaps not for long.

sonastin

Perhaps you could contact them and try to arrange some sort of repayment plan that is mutually acceptable. They will be better off taking the money you can give them rather than fighting for money you haven't got.

If I find out the winning lotto numbers I probably won't be sharing them - but I might lend you £20k!

Brazilio1975

G_M wrote: »

I'm amazed by this. Highly unlikely. Where did you hear this?
They could only do this either
a) with your permission OR
b) with a court order

If they go to court for non payment, and win, and you still refuse to pay, THEN the court can give permission for this. Now maybe they have a reputation for following this process on defaulters, but you can argue in court against this and offer to pay on a weekly.monthly basis.

I was too.

But they have already succeded once. What they do is they have you set up a direct debit, which I cancelled after a while as I didnot recognise the company named, and upon cancelling the direct debit they took £300 from my account. Not with my authority, but without me knowing. The first I was aware was when I couldn't withdraw cash and then when I logged on to my internet bank account.

I have seen a few other complaints on the web: which you can read if you type 'close payment services complaint' into google.

...and am very worried. Our agreement term with them apparently runs out on Christmas Day...

silvercar

Contact your bank and tell them to block payments to this organisation.

upon cancelling the direct debit they took £300 from my account. Not with my authority, but without me knowing.

What does your bank say about this?

G_M

As I said - they can only do it with your permission, or a court order.
A direct debit mandat is your permission.
But you can, and did apparantly, cancel this mandate and therefore removed permission.

Check out the direct debit guaranree scheme here and get your £300 back!

Brazilio1975

G_M wrote: »

As I said - they can only do it with your permission, or a court order.
A direct debit mandat is your permission.
But you can, and did apparantly, cancel this mandate and therefore removed permission.

Check out the here and get your £300 back!

I have as yet not informed the bank, but have arranged a meeting, so can only hope that they can do something.

I also believe that somewhere in the forms that were signed they claim it is "an agreement not regulated by the consumer credit act 1974" - I don't know if this is relevant.

tbs624

OP - have you granted this company a Continuous Payment Authority?

They are part of the Close Brothers merchant bank.

The trouble with these deferred payment schemes is that people tend not to put away money for the inevitable day of reckoning, even when they don't have a job loss to contend with.

As well as talking to your bank asap, get along to the local Council's Trading Standards Office and ask them to look through the paperwork. get the CAB or local Debt Advisory Service to help you try to set up a payment plan, taking your current financial situation into account.

googler

Brazilio1975 wrote: »

We will obviously now be due to pay the home report and fees amounting to £3000.

Home Reports at the price level discussed are around £400 or so, with a small premium for deferred payment.

What fees are expected to add £2600 or so to this?

You only pay your agent a selling fee when they sell your home, unless you agreed to something way out of the ordinary when you put it on the market in the first place......

Typical listing fees shouldn't be more than a few hundred. If this figure IS the agent's total fee, even then it seems way too high for a typical selling fee.....

Brazilio1975

googler wrote: »

Home Reports at the price level discussed are around £400 or so, with a small premium for deferred payment.

What fees are expected to add £2600 or so to this?

You only pay your agent a selling fee when they sell your home, unless you agreed to something way out of the ordinary when you put it on the market in the first place......

Typical listing fees shouldn't be more than a few hundred. If this figure IS the agent's total fee, even then it seems way too high for a typical selling fee.....

In checking this it is correct. We are in debt to Close PS around £1200, I will look through the paperwork to obtain more detail on the services they claim to have provided (I think photography, printed schedule and advertising). You are correct in that the Estate Agent will waive their fee as they have not sold our flat.

I believe the whole agreement is through ESPC who also charge for the various locations they have advertised the property. And I also believe receive a 'commission' in organising the payment structure.