Mortgage Exit Fees successes and failures

MarkyMarkD

andrewking wrote:

Hi

Has anyone had any luck claiming back fees from either Direct Line or First Direct? I am just going back through my old statements and it is very difficult to find out what is an exit fee and what is just normal interest.

Looking at your regular statements is unlikely to help - exit fees will normally be only shown on your redemption statement.

MarkyMarkD

leafton wrote:

Hi,
We took out our first mortgage in 1999 with Halifax. As we moved in 2002, we increased our mortgage with them. I no longer have the details of any fees- Can anyone tell me if there would have been an incorrect charge on increasing the amount?
We switched to IF in 2005 and undoubtedly incurred an incorrect fee then. Before I call them in the morning, I was just wondering if I should be asking for 2 lots of fees?
Thank you everyone- much appreciated.

Probably re Halifax in 2002, but the charge wouldn't have been for increasing the amount but for redeeming the first mortgage and taking out a new mortgage for the new property. And also probably re Halifax in 2005.

All in all, I think you should enquire about both redemptions.

MarkyMarkD

NCarson wrote:

Following my letter to Birmingham Midshires, they sent me a vacating fee enquiry form to complete. Within 10 days of completing this, they've written to offer £50 as a "gesture of goodwill" as long as I sign a form within 28 days agreeing that this is in full and final settlement.

I've still to pursue another mortgage redemption fee with B Midshires as well as Nationwide, Standard Life, Halifax and Intelligent Finance.

It does worry me that you've redeemed 6 mortgages! It's quite likely that you won't get anything back on at least some of them, as I presume you had the mortgages for relatively short periods during which the MEAF may not have increased.

MarkyMarkD

nemutai wrote:

P.S. Are mortgage arrangment fees being challenged because the name is a mis-noma it doesn't cost £595 to set up a mortgage????

No, because they are not called arrangement fees but product fees and they are a part of the product terms, which you choose to accept when you buy a mortgage, not a penalty or anything similar. And it's "misnomer" not "mis-noma".

Rexdavenport

Just to share that I mailed Lloyds TSB on 18/2/07 about the £225 I paid Sept 05 on completion of my mortgage and got a reply yesterday to effect that all £225 plus interest of about £18 will be repaid. The repayment of 100% was based on the last document signed which did not specify an exit fee, although the original mortgage taken out 22 years ago did specify £30!
Many thanks to Money saving expert and, to be fair, to Lloyds TSB.

Herb

Martin I Love You!

I am a property landlord and within 10 days I have had £670 from Nat West for 8 mortgages settled in the last 2 years and £125 from C&G for one, with confirmation of another £125 from C&G when I close a remaining mortgage.

C&G paid me interest at 1% above base as well. So I have written to NW asking for the same!

I was always fully aware of these increases and thought it underhand as I had chosen the mortgages extremely carefully - comparing in detail to other companies. Although very miffed - I never thought I would get anyware complaining.

Still got loads more that I am waiting for - I'll let you know.

Yet again Martin comes to the rescue - This time paying for my holiday

Bollinge

We were charged exit fees of £235 when redeeming our thirteen year old Bradford & Bingley mortgage.

I wrote asking for a refund of £150 and they sent £185 by return.

If you don't ask, you don't get!

foreversummer

Hi

Contacted the Woolwich this morning. Given refund of £182.60 - wow it was so easy! Lady knew instantly how much they owed me.

I didn't expect this much as, although I had a mortgage with them for around 8 years, I had remortgaged onto a new deal every two years with them. However, seems that they calculate from when you take the first mortgage.

Thanks Martin for this extremely valuable site! I recommend it to everyone I meet. Keep up the good work.

Foreversummer

sweeney

25 years of paying Abbey (and it's predecessors) on time every time was rewarded with an unsigned letter advising that Repayment Fee would be £225 (Mortgage for present house is about 5 years old). Letter asking them to justify £225, and including complaint that they did not advise of the cost of their offer to use their solicitors to finalise, met with a fairly quick response that the Repayment Fee will be £95.00 - and that can include the charge if I wish Abbey to act on my behalf. Quite clearly they are routinely trying it on charging £225 and hoping to get away with it.
Now, where are the papers relating to paying off the old mortgage that I had with them before I started the present one!

SuperWife

When I read Martin's tip about being able to get some of the Mortgage Exit Fees back, I quickly ran out to the garage and dug out my recently boxed up papers for our old mortgage and discovered that we had in fact been charged this exit fee (1 minute 30 seconds).

I looked up the geographical number for our old mortgage provider (Woolwich) on saynoto0870 dot com (30 seconds) and decided to telephone them rather than writing to them in hopes of a quicker response. I was immediately passed through to a dedicated department and spoke to a real person who looked up our details and confirmed that we had been charged too much and she arranged for £183.35 (the amount overpaid by us plus a small amount of interest owed) to be re-credited to our current account within 5 working days. The call time display on my phone said 3 minutes and 12 seconds. I've never made so much for 5 minutes work! Yippee :dance: :dance: