Mortgage Exit Fees successes and failures

Tracy33

:beer: What great advice used your template and got a cheque this morning from The Royal Bank Of Scotland for £150.00 !!, along with a very grovelling letter how nice to see the bank squirm instead of their customers good on you Martin fantastic advice.

eharkin1

i just recieved a chq for £40 from the halifax today. not bad for 5 mins work on the phone

geordiescouse

ABBEY

Received my response letter from Abbey today asking for a few more details to confirm my mortgage details. They have also enclosed an official form for claiming back the fees. Basically there are 4 criteria to fulfil:

1. If your mortgage was opened after 11 May 2005 - Tough luck, you were told the conditions at the time (my words not theirs!)
2. If your mortgage was taken out prior to 11 May 2005 - you may have a claim if you check conditions 3 & 4
3. If you have taken out additional lending since 11 My 2005 - You will have been issued with new T & C's explaining fees, so no refund due
4. If you have changed your mortgage product (eg. fixed/discounted) since 11 May 2005 - You will have received new T & C when product changed, so no refund due.

I have completed my form and returned, here's hoping!!! Even though I meet all the criteria I won't believe it until the cheque is in hand!

stash36

Halifax.

Fee was £40 in '95, and £75 when I left them in '01. Phoned up and cheque for £35 in post.
A collegue went into his Halifax branch and left with a similar cheque within 15 mins.

Now if could get my £800 mortgage indemnity fee back, I'd be even more pleased. Surely that's also got to be found unlawful some time soon.

Grabbit_2

stash36 wrote:

Now if could get my £800 mortgage indemnity fee back, I'd be even more pleased. Surely that's also got to be found unlawful some time soon.

Now that is an even better (and more lucrative) idea than reclaiming exit fees. If my memory serves me correctly the indemnity fee was an insurance fee that the mortgage company charged you so if you defaulted they could claim against it. The mortgagee never received a service for it, were never told what it entailed, and never signed a contract for it - BUT THEY CHARGED YOU IT ANYWAY.
And if you didn't have one they wouldn't give you a mortgage.

So if bank and mortgage charges are meant to reflect the true cost of the service provided then what was the true cost of an indemnity that one was charged something like £1000 for ?

4$£&*(£$&*(!

That's a very good point, Halifax wouldn't lend me the traditional 3.5x rate when I took out a mortgage with them in 2002, they only would let me take out 2.8x which wasn't enough, so I had to pay around £500 to enable me to take the 3.5x rate.

I had to use Halifax because the house I brought was part of a deal - the previous owners purchased a new-build and it was one of these deals where the builders gave them a fixed amount for their previous property. I had to pay a £200 deposit to the building company which secured my house - in other words once I paid that (which came off the final price) I couldn't be gazumped. I had to use the specified mortgage lender though and solicitors, although the building company paid for the solicitors fees and 5% of the house price, but that's why I had to use Halifax.

I would be very interested if I could get that indemnity fee back!

(I should add that I ended up doing some of the solicitors work myself, going through the contract I had no chain my end, but the contract didn't specify a date for moving. Although I wasn't in a hurry - it was around April, the company said they expected to have completed in June, so I requested a date of first week in July they had to move even if house wasn't finished or else I would be waiting forever. No wonder solicitors get a bad name for themselves; plus the vendor's solicitor tried to persuade me to complete two days early so they got keys to new place and kept old house keys for their convenience. They stopped arguing with me when I asked what if there was an accident in the house and I owned it, who would be responsible then? Seems like the vendors wanted to have their cake and eat it.)

waterbaby

I phoned Halifax yesterday for my £75 (£175-£100) and was told that it would have to be investigated and I would know within 28 days, however the language she used implied that there was no problem. So I'll put that straight into the new mortgage.:T

I enquired about the £100 being too much in the first place, but she was clear that at the moment the issue is only that they should have charged what they said initially.

Maybe I will be in line for another £40-£50 a little later. Hope so.

stash36

Grabbit wrote:

Now that is an even better (and more lucrative) idea than reclaiming exit fees. If my memory serves me correctly the indemnity fee was an insurance fee that the mortgage company charged you so if you defaulted they could claim against it. The mortgagee never received a service for it, were never told what it entailed, and never signed a contract for it - BUT THEY CHARGED YOU IT ANYWAY.
And if you didn't have one they wouldn't give you a mortgage.

So if bank and mortgage charges are meant to reflect the true cost of the service provided then what was the true cost of an indemnity that one was charged something like £1000 for ?

Exactly Grabbit. We struggled to get a mortgage back in '95 and had to pay the 800 idemnity fee with the Halifax or we were snookered. I remember it being termed as funds they invested in case they had to sell the house on at a loss in future. In they end they didn't need to do this as I changed lenders, paying them off in full, so where's my 800 quid?

Has anyone ever looked into this before? If not how do we get the ball rolling?

mrtickle

geordiescouse wrote:

ABBEY

Received my response letter from Abbey today asking for a few more details to confirm my mortgage details.

I've received the same letter too, and I'm very angry about it. It is basically a time-wasting exercise: they don't need any more details from me at all. They've pre-filled in the whole thing using the information THAT I SUPPLIED IN MY LETTER TO THEM! The only parts left blank are the address (already in their records, and it matches the address in their "your details" section unsurprisingly), and my signature. Well duh. I signed the letter I sent them!

So now, I'm expected to post that form back to them signed, at my expense, wasting more time and money. No telephone number or fax number in sight anywhere :mad: .

Well it's just not good enough, Abbey. You're going to get a piece of my mind tomorrow, and because of your tactics I'm going to claim the interest on the £126 as well.

Spirit_2

We switched our mortgage from Halifax in Sept 06 and paid a 175 pounds exit fee. After seeing postings on MSE on Thursday evening I telephoned Halifax and enquired about the charge. They said 'they would look into it and get back to me within 28 days'.

I received a cheque for 125 pounds on Saturday morning, only 36 hours later. Thankyou MSE and well done Halifax.