MSE News: Halifax to repay £500m to 300,000 mortgage holders

booma_mitch

Thrugelmir wrote: »

To obtain the further advance. You would have signed an offer for the funds. In accepting the offer, your mortgage would have been updated to reflect the terms and conditions prevailing at the time. These are revised fairly often to reflect changes in the law or a change in policy. A copy of would have been sent with your copy of the mortgage offer.

So will be interesting to see how Halifax respond to your complaint.

I am one of the others in the same position as Lisa. I don't recall being given a copy of the terms and conditions at the time of the further advance but aren't disputing that it is possible that I was.

However, I am sure that I did receive a Further Advance Offer which I have a copy of. The Offer explicitly states that the terms of the original borrowing will apply to the further advance. It is there in black and white, despite the Halifax telling me that this is not possible! So whether I was or wasn't given a copy of the up to date conditions is somewhat irrelevant as the Further Advance was taken on the above basis.

I am now aware that it appears that the wording in the Further Advance offer I received is not standard wording, however, that is what it says. If that wording was not there then your response would be absolutely correct, and I would not dispute that the goodwill payment does not apply to my borrowings. However, this is not the position that we are in and this is why we are still disputing this with the Halifax. The simple fact that it is now four months since my initial telephone call to the Halifax and we are no further forward suggests to me that it is not quite as simple as your post implies.

lisa21

Well the response I recieved from the Halifax this morning is indeed 'interesting'

They have acknowledged that my Further Advance paperwork states nothing about my mortgage terms being changed, in fact quite the opposite. As a result they have confirmed that I DO fall into the criteria for a goodwill payment, and have had £2570 transferred into my Halifax account this morning, along with a cheque for £100 as compensation for the carp service. :T

So glad that SOMEONE has finally listened to my point!!!!!!!!

So anyone who had a Further Advance and was therefore told was not eligible - CHECK YOUR PAPERWORK!!!!!

LondonLass

Can anyone who received a goodwill payment with any kind of calculation tell me the end date that was used? I finally received a written response from the Halifax but with no additional information at all! The letter acknowledges that the amount to be paid (which i reckon is £1000 short) will equal the different in the interest, but i don't know when the end date for the calculation would be.

booma_mitch

Hi, I got a goodwill payment, the cheque arrived this morning. On mine the end date was the end of August which is when they finally pulled their finger out and agreed that I was elegible. I got a full breakdown though of how they had arrived at the figure, one spreadsheet was the account balance at 3.5% and the other was at 2.5%. Mine actually worked out at more than I had calculated.

yallapilko

I would like to let people on here know of my experience in FINALLY getting an answer from the Halifax regarding their calculation of goodwill payment.

Upon receiving my good will cheque in June of £395 I IMMEDIATELY contacted them to say I thought they'd caluclated it wrongly and to let me know how they'd worked it out. They took the maximum allowed to send me a reply (28 days) and I received a letter telling me I may be confused (!!!!) and that the sum was caluclated by a 'complex' method (not enclosed). I spoke to them on the phone several times and finally in SEPTEMBER received the VERY SAME letter again.
I was continually fobbed off with the excuses that 'no one has been told how it was worked out' to 'the department are separate to us and cannot be contacted' (I had fun tormenting them with that one!).
So I called them back and here is what worked for me.
I CALMLY SAID I WOULD LIKE TO COMPLAIN AND WAS GOING TO FORWARD MY COMPLAINT TO THE FSA AS I'D NOT GOT A STRAIGHT ANSWER IN THREE MONTHS (you have to contact the Halifax and air your complaint before FSA will consider it). He then said that I could either forward the complaint or receive £30 and the complaint would be dealt with. (i.e. complain and get £30 or complain and get nothing!!!!) So I went for the £30 and then MIRACULOUSLY two days later I received a very poorly explained letter with two SPREAD SHEETS pertaining to my account which when you looked at it very carefully showed the end balance. It had been calculated on roughly one percent of of my total mortgage (around £84k) over 6 months. 84000 x 1% divided by 2 ( as 12 months in a year).
THEY DID NOT EXPLAIN HOW THIS IS CALCULATED, THEY JUST PROVIDED THE SPREAD SHEETS. VERY POOR DO HALIFAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHAME ON YOU!!!
Finally, I am being sent £30 plus £20 for my complaint being upheld. ( I was told £35 would be sent and no mention of £20 extra pounds).
My payment was roughtly correct.
I hope this helps some of you out there. My advice would be keep calm and cool and threaten the FSA after forwarding your complaint.

LondonLass

yallapilko wrote: »

I would like to let people on here know of my experience in FINALLY getting an answer from the Halifax regarding their calculation of goodwill payment.

Upon receiving my good will cheque in June of £395 I IMMEDIATELY contacted them to say I thought they'd caluclated it wrongly and to let me know how they'd worked it out. They took the maximum allowed to send me a reply (28 days) and I received a letter telling me I may be confused (!!!!) and that the sum was caluclated by a 'complex' method (not enclosed). I spoke to them on the phone several times and finally in SEPTEMBER received the VERY SAME letter again.
I was continually fobbed off with the excuses that 'no one has been told how it was worked out' to 'the department are separate to us and cannot be contacted' (I had fun tormenting them with that one!).
So I called them back and here is what worked for me.
I CALMLY SAID I WOULD LIKE TO COMPLAIN AND WAS GOING TO FORWARD MY COMPLAINT TO THE FSA AS I'D NOT GOT A STRAIGHT ANSWER IN THREE MONTHS (you have to contact the Halifax and air your complaint before FSA will consider it). He then said that I could either forward the complaint or receive £30 and the complaint would be dealt with. (i.e. complain and get £30 or complain and get nothing!!!!) So I went for the £30 and then MIRACULOUSLY two days later I received a very poorly explained letter with two SPREAD SHEETS pertaining to my account which when you looked at it very carefully showed the end balance. It had been calculated on roughly one percent of of my total mortgage (around £84k) over 6 months. 84000 x 1% divided by 2 ( as 12 months in a year).
THEY DID NOT EXPLAIN HOW THIS IS CALCULATED, THEY JUST PROVIDED THE SPREAD SHEETS. VERY POOR DO HALIFAX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SHAME ON YOU!!!
Finally, I am being sent £30 plus £20 for my complaint being upheld. ( I was told £35 would be sent and no mention of £20 extra pounds).
My payment was roughtly correct.
I hope this helps some of you out there. My advice would be keep calm and cool and threaten the FSA after forwarding your complaint.

Thanks for that, that is my next step. Do you mind telling me why it was only for 6 months? I am still trying to work out which month they cut off at. I know the start date is when i went onto the SVR with this clause in the offer. I presume 6 months just matches your circumstances.

yallapilko

London Lass - It was only for 6 months as we sold the house and moved our mortgage.... sorry I should have put that down.

gazmoore77

LondonLass, the cut off date will be when they informed you in writing that they were raising the 2% cap as they were required to do as per their terms and conditions (2004 v.2)
To say these are goodwill payments is nonsense, Halifax raised rates in a way that the contract did not allow so by overcharging they have effectively been retaining a wrongful credit and the goodwill is all for the Halifax as they are not paying interest on theses amounts.

Has anyone successfully challenged a change to their t's & c's that they weren't provided with? I split from my ex just before going onto svr and they claim I would've been supplied with a copy of the new terms but I can find no trace despite keeping ALL paperwork.

stripee

Hi

I don't want to seem greedy, but thought I'd ask the question, on the off chance.

I'm very grateful that in May we had a letter saying we're getting a goodwill gesture payment of £2085. It was totally out of the blue, and reduced our OS balance to around 134K. Woo!

My question is, could I or should I challenge the payment. If they've volunteered this much, could I get more? Is it a "keeping us quiet" payment.

Or reading some of the posts here describing customers' interactions with Halifax customer service is it not even worth the bother, and should I just be eternally grateful for getting such a windfall? And as it was May, have I missed the boat anyway?

Many thanks in advance

somi

Hello all,

I am now seriously wanting to pursue this. I only recieved goodwill of £250.

We took out our mortgage with Halifax in May 2007 interest only fixed at 4.99% till feb 2009. The mortgage was for i believe around £196500.
After feb 2009 we went onto a Halifax SVR and then at Dec 2009 or Jan 2010 remortgaged with Halifax to a discounted -0.50% base rate. We are still on it and this ends in Jan 2012.

After reading few of the listings I feel left out and need people in this forum for advice and guidance in successfully pursuing this with Halifax, I dont see any reason why i do not fill the criteria for a good sum payout to reduce my mortgage as i am really struggling to pay it now.

I hope to recieve all your replys.