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

Ladyw1982

Lisadt - it was a customer services rep who told me she had been trained up on the situation, but clearly couldn't grasp what I was trying to explain about the 3 month window of free ERC!!

GB350 - I totally agree with you, it's not about the goodwill payments, it's the fact that they didn't write to us about the change therefore we are at s disadvantage to others who were informed and got the chance to pay off theirs without ERC charges!!

As it stands I calculated that I would get about 30 quid back! Ridiculous considering I could of saved over 2k in redemption fees at the time and was on a 6.19% interest rate!! Very annoyed!!

Ladyw1982

Does anyone mind me asking what the reference was on the top of your letters (top left hand corner)? Mine was LICPTV23. Thanks

GB350

Ladyw1982 wrote: »

Does anyone mind me asking what the reference was on the top of your letters (top left hand corner)? Mine was LICPTV23. Thanks

Mine was the same.... would guess that content of the letter is also the same.. I'd be interested to know if any of the recipients of refunds thus far in this debacle. (those who were contacted back in February) have managed to equate the payout to their circumstances in any way shape or form. There are a lot of posts in this forum, it's been ongoing since February yet seems that still nobody knows how Halifax are doing the maths.

opinions4u

Perhaps, for customers already in fixed rate mortgages, they didn't make the change to T&Cs in 2008.

Giving them written notice of the change towards the scheduled end of the product originally taken (along with penalty free opt out) would be perfectly acceptable.

GB350

opinions4u wrote: »

Perhaps, for customers already in fixed rate mortgages, they didn't make the change to T&Cs in 2008.

Giving them written notice of the change towards the scheduled end of the product originally taken (along with penalty free opt out) would be perfectly acceptable.

Helpfully they have included the following extracts from our original mortgage conditions in the letter received 21/11/11. The marginal rate basically being the % above BOE base rate which their cap was set at.:rotfl::xmassmile

Marginal rate-2% or any changed rate which applies under condition 7.17(c)
7.17(c) We may change the marginal rate at any time by giving you at least 30 days notice.
10.3 If we give you notice during the early repayment charge period of an increase in the marginal rate under condition 7.17(c), we will not charge an early repayment charge if you repay the full debt within three months of our giving you notice of the increase.

In a nutshell.... We should have received notice of their intention to increase the marginal rate on the 1st October 2008 as they implemented this action on the 31st October 2008. We did'nt.. simple as that. Refer then to clause 10.3. This is a no brainer... They owe me.... Lots....

walker1627

I went into halifax yesterday to see the mortgage advisor. I asked him to quote me for a new (cheaper) fixed deal. he said i couldn't do it as the letter only said i could fully repay without charges and as i would not be repaying, the fees would still apply. I said that was fine, i would cross the street to santander, get a good deal with them and they would fully repay on my behalf with no fees. "i do hope the other 300,000 affected by this dont do the same or you are going to be short of work aren't you?" This prompted him to call head office who from the gist of the conversation, told him not to be such an idiot!! What he doesnt know is that with my awful credit, i dont have the option to shop around. Don't think there is anyone in halifax who knows what they are doing. anyway...... managed to change onto a new fixed deal which is £70 a month cheaper going forward, now just the back dated to worry about.
Unbelieveably, whilst i was there, i uncovered another error. I asked him to review my life cover/ppi and realised that when i changed and upgraded the cover in jan 2008, they forgot to cancel the old life policy so my husband has been paying it ever since!! partly his fault for never reading his statements imo but mortgage advisor said halifax are at fault so owe us around £800 back in mis paid premiums!!!!!. Think this will be our most profitable christmas ever. :j

smitchy73

I'm in agreement with all of you, we had three fixed rate parts to our mortgage and one interest only part, the fixed rates were all equity releases prior to 2008 when this rate change was made, and before we had major money worries, we would have been able to shop around and if not having the ERC's to pay would've put us in a very decent position to move elsewhere, a bit stuck now, but will see how this plays out in regards to this. I've got a meeting with our branch mortgage advisor and this was arranged before I got the letter last week, the last of our three fixed rates finishes at the end of December so looking to shift it all to a repayment, but we would've had at least £3000 in ERC's to pay as had three fixed rates, so there was a penalty on each one, which we could've moved to a base rate somewhere else and repaying alot of money off our mortgage, but of course - ONLY IF THEY'D TOLD US WHICH THEY DIDN'T. We've had successes with ppi, see signature, but this could be another similar settlement.
One other thing that annoyed me is that the letter stated that it would be refunded to the mortgage account, why when it's us that have overpaid, shouldn't they refund us the overpayments or pay the overpayments to the mortgage account and refund us what the ERC's would've been as compensation??

cazza78

smitchy73 wrote: »

I'm in agreement with all of you, we had three fixed rate parts to our mortgage and one interest only part, the fixed rates were all equity releases prior to 2008 when this rate change was made, and before we had major money worries, we would have been able to shop around and if not having the ERC's to pay would've put us in a very decent position to move elsewhere, a bit stuck now, but will see how this plays out in regards to this. I've got a meeting with our branch mortgage advisor and this was arranged before I got the letter last week, the last of our three fixed rates finishes at the end of December so looking to shift it all to a repayment, but we would've had at least £3000 in ERC's to pay as had three fixed rates, so there was a penalty on each one, which we could've moved to a base rate somewhere else and repaying alot of money off our mortgage, but of course - ONLY IF THEY'D TOLD US WHICH THEY DIDN'T. We've had successes with ppi, see signature, but this could be another similar settlement.
One other thing that annoyed me is that the letter stated that it would be refunded to the mortgage account, why when it's us that have overpaid, shouldn't they refund us the overpayments or pay the overpayments to the mortgage account and refund us what the ERC's would've been as compensation??

When I rang them I asked if it could be in form of cheque rather than onto mortgage account and thay adv that they can, either refund to mortgage account or cheque. x

smitchy73

I've just been for my mortgage review and wasn't too enamoured at all. She told me it HAD to go to the mortgage, so we'll see about that, I want the cheque and if I decide to pay extra to it I will, but I'll wait and see what refund we get but this advisor was telling me most people it's just been a few pounds, but I happened to mention that if we'd have been told about the rise we could've moved elsewhere at the time with a decent value still on the house and a cheaper rate elsewhere, and I would've been better off, so I'll be keeping a close eye on this one and i'd advise everyone to do the same Bank of England base rate dropped from 4.5% in Oct 08 to 0.5% in March 09, so if I'd have moved in october 08 I might've got a better deal on a standard rate elsewhere and as the rate dropped over the following couple of months would've save a substantial amount of money, and subsequently paid more of the mortgage off, and ended up not defaulting on credit cards between then and now! All now sorted of course.

GB350

On November 14 2008 HSBC still had a lifetime tracker deal available to those with 60% LTV at 0.99% above base rate subject to a £799 product fee. Base rate was 3.00% at this time but steadily worked its way down to 0.5% by March 2009. How I wish I'd been given the chance to move to this deal......