Mortgage Exit Fees successes and failures

Fee_Claimer

I've discovered a new trick that my mortgage company is trying to play, along the same lines.

In this case Woolwich/Barclays are charging me £275 for closing my mortgage when I have actually ported it when moving house. My Woolwich mortgage adviser was completely unaware of the charge, and told me it was not payable when it started appearing on my statements. On the other hand, I was told about the (huge but at least obvious) mortgage application fee for the increased lending.!

To add insult to injury, they kept on charging me my old mortgage payments after I moved house, but because they had closed my mortgage account down (for which the £275 is charged), they lost the money and I had to chase it through my own bank processes.!

The relevant bit of the terms and conditions says 'What happens if you move house? You can keep this mortgage if you move to another property provided that you still meet our lending criteria at that time'.

I complained over 8 weeks ago and they haven't dealt with it, so I have written to the ombudsman.!

As far as I can tell, all the posts here (and the article) are about where you actually leave your mortgage company. Does anyone have experience of these charges when you are moving house but staying with the same company?

dunstonh

I've discovered a new trick that my mortgage company is trying to play, along the same lines.

Its not a new trick. Its an individual error and you have taken the correct response by complaining about it as they havent resolved it.

MarkyMarkD

An MEAF is payable for redeeming a mortgage, which you have done when you sold your house and bought another one.

Portability refers to transferring the product terms to a new property. It does not mean that you haven't redeemed the mortgage, or that an MEAF is not due.

It does, however, mean that the same terms should apply to the new mortgage - including the MEAF - which may be advantageous if it was lower than currently charged. In practice, though, most products which are portable would be fairly recent and have the highest (current) level of MEAF in any case.

In summary, you haven't got anything to complain about and, unusually, I disagree with dunstonh.

Winning_Team_2

Can anyone advise as to why when Abbey and A & L were both taken over by Santander that nothing was paid to savers or mortgage holders etc in way of shares, premium or dividends as an acknowledgement of long standing accounts holders with the former Companies?

metrodriver

I have been paying for critical illness cover for over 11 years, the policy is with Skandia UK, Does anyone know if I can claim back any of these payments that I have made over the years, also how do I go about cancelling this policy.:o

dunstonh

metrodriver wrote: »

I have been paying for critical illness cover for over 11 years, the policy is with Skandia UK, Does anyone know if I can claim back any of these payments that I have made over the years, also how do I go about cancelling this policy.:o

No you can't.

Just because you dont claim on an insurance policy does not mean you get your money back at the end. The whole point of insurance is to spread the risk across a pool of people. If everyone got their money back it would not work.

Can anyone advise as to why when Abbey and A & L were both taken over by Santander that nothing was paid to savers or mortgage holders etc in way of shares, premium or dividends as an acknowledgement of long standing accounts holders with the former Companies?

Because the takeover was due to financial solvency reasons.

MarkyMarkD

metrodriver wrote:

Can anyone advise as to why when Abbey and A & L were both taken over by Santander that nothing was paid to savers or mortgage holders etc in way of shares, premium or dividends as an acknowledgement of long standing accounts holders with the former Companies?

dunstonh wrote:

Because the takeover was due to financial solvency reasons.

No, dunston. The reason nothing was paid to CUSTOMERS when Abbey and A&L were taken over is that they were already banks. Their MEMBERS had previously been given shares when they converted from building societies to banks in the 1990s.

Customers don't get paid anything simply because the organisation they are a customer of is taken over.

dunstonh

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

No, dunston. The reason nothing was paid to CUSTOMERS when Abbey and A&L were taken over is that they were already banks. Their MEMBERS had previously been given shares when they converted from building societies to banks in the 1990s.

Customers don't get paid anything simply because the organisation they are a customer of is taken over.

You are totally right. I had complete brain freeze when I wrote my response. I wrote my response far too quickly and was thinking Nationwide's mergers. Sorry.

MarkyMarkD

For mergers of mutuals, payments are normally made to equalise the share of reserves attributable to members.

So, if a society with £2,000 of reserves per member (not many of them with this much!) merged with one with £1,000 of reserves per member, in theory a payout of £1,000 per member (to members of the £2,000 per member society) might be due.

If the societies being acquired (e.g. by Nationwide) are in a bad way, then no payment is due because they have less reserves per member than Nationwide. In fact, all things being equal, these societies' members should be paying Nationwide for rescuing them!

bertone0377

First success since joining MSE! Woohoo! £50.00 in MEAF fees returned by Southern Pacific Mortgages (they are now trading a something else but I can't remember what!). I have also called Northern Rock today to challenge their MEAF fees, there complaints team are currently looking into it and will get back to me! Loving this site!