Deferred Payment of Home Report.

Brazilio1975

tbs624 wrote: »

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.

I think this is correct. It would be fair to say I entered into this fairly blindly in retrospect, though I had my hand held as I signed all this away. In retrospect if I had been informed this is how the repayment would be handled I would not have entered into the agreement.

I think morally there is something not quite right about this (!) and feel that a key element of the repayment schedule was withheld from me when I entered into the agreement. I will certainly speak to the companies you have mentioned and I can only advise anyone else to think twice about this type of agreement when they enter into it as in 9 months if anything the housing market has gotten worse for typical first time buyer properties.

googler

Brazilio1975 wrote: »

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.

Close PS aren't your selling agent - they merely provide a financial product which enables the deferred payment of the HR at around £400 plus premium. I can't believe this premium can lead to a bill of £1200 or £3000......

Your agent does photos, schedules, advertising, and there's no reason you should be paying them now, unless - you're taking the house off the market, or - they've sold it. Is your agent asking for payment at this stage? Are you taking the house off the market?

Where have they advertised it, apart from in the ESPC's own printed guide and in their property centre? There's a standard fee for this, and it's no more than £200-300. Have they been running press adverts in The Scotsman or Evening News? If so, did you ask them to do this, and did you agree to the cost involved in this advertising in advance?

Something's not adding up here.....

G_M

Get / do everything in writing.

WRITE to the bank, giving the date you cancelled the direct debit, the date they took the money from your account under the DD scheme, and demanding its return.

Write to whoever is demanding the money (Close Brothers? Estate agent? Home report provider?) asking for a breakdown of exactly what money they believe you owe, for what service(s), when the service was provided.