Mortgage Exit Fees discussion

hollydays

In 2000 I took advice from a financial adviser and took out a small mortgage to buy a house.I cant remember which mortgage company they were.I changed mortgages once or twice,i can only remember that I had a mortgage with the Halifax.Would the Financial adviser be under any obligation to give me this information?I am no longer with my previous bank and have none of the bank statements.What can I do?I unfortunately got rid of all my paperwork a little while ago,i have now sold the property that I had a mortgage on.

Burnley_Lad

I've received a letter from the Halifax stating that I can claim £100 back.

It seemed too easy, so I thought about it for a bit.

I wonder if Halifax know something we don't... What I mean is that if the FSA announce on 28th February for example that banks should refund anything over £55. Everyone who has already claimed the difference between what the fee was when they took out the mortgage and what fee they actually paid wouldn't be able to claim, as on the Halifax mortgage it states 'I accept this in full and final settlement'.

The letter states that I've got 8 weeks to accept, so I think I'm going to wait until the announcement to decide whether to accept this or not.

regularsaver1

Halifax announce their stance yesterday

Borrowers will pay the fee on their original mortgage offer OR if they have done a product transfer or a further advance since, the fee that appears on that offer

jake1703

Hi all,

I had an Alliance & Leicester mortgage from 1997 until summer 2005. They charged me £295 MEAF.

I sent the sample letter asking for a £205 refund. I can't find the original paperwork but £90, which is the figure quoted on this website for A&L MEAFs, sounds familiar.

I received the following today.



Quote:
As promised in our previous correspondence, I have looked into the issue you have raised and hope we are now able to agree the way forward.

Alliance & Leicester first introduced a single administration fee of £195 from 5 January 2004 called the Early Closure Administration Charge. The fee was increases in August 2004 to £295 and this has been detailed in the leaflet that would have accompanied your Annual Mortgage Statement each year since then. We have decided to reduce the fee payable to customers who took out their mortgage before August 2004 to the original level of £195 – a reduction of £100.

Having reviewed our records, I am pleased to enclose a cheque for £100 refund against the £295 Redemption Administration Charge that was incurred on closure of your account.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss any aspect of this matter further. If I have not heard from you within the next 7 days, I will regard your complaint as closed.



A partial success but should I continue for the full amount? Any tips greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Jake

MarkyMarkD

Burnley_Lad wrote:

I've received a letter from the Halifax stating that I can claim £100 back.

It seemed too easy, so I thought about it for a bit.

I wonder if Halifax know something we don't... What I mean is that if the FSA announce on 28th February for example that banks should refund anything over £55. Everyone who has already claimed the difference between what the fee was when they took out the mortgage and what fee they actually paid wouldn't be able to claim, as on the Halifax mortgage it states 'I accept this in full and final settlement'.

The letter states that I've got 8 weeks to accept, so I think I'm going to wait until the announcement to decide whether to accept this or not.

Burnley_Lad

I think you're very confused about the end of February deadline.

The FSA have asked the lenders to tell them, by the end of February, what they are going to do.

One of the options which is acceptable to the FSA is to charge every customer the amount their original offer (or a later switch of product or further advance offer) stated.

There is absolutely no way that the FSA are going to tell lenders to refund everything over £55 (or, indeed, any amount). They've explicitly said that the amount lenders can charge bears no resemblance to their costs.

If the charge Halifax quoted to you when you took out your mortgage was £100 less than what they charged you on redemption, then £100 is the whole amount you are going to get. Waiting a while isn't going to change that.

MarkyMarkD

tellyerworraldowivyer wrote:

Hello All.
I am thinking about enquiring about the amount I paid for MEAF fees, my story is:
In August 2000 we (me and the wife) took out a discount rate mortgage with a tie in with Bank of Scotland (before they merged with the Halifax) We were aware of the early repayment charge, which was paid along with the other fees.
We moved house in March 2002 and redeemed the mortgage.
In the same year we took out a two year fixed rate Halifax mortgage, again, we redeemed this in April 2003.
We took out another mortgage with Abbey in 2003, again a two year fixed rate, again we had to redeem it early in March 2004.
Just to say that I am fully aware that redemption fees are non negotiable because we repaid a fixed rate early and tie in rate early.
I want to know if we can still get a part of the repayment fee back in these circumstances.
Thanks everyone

[RANT MODE]This thread is about MEAFs. Your early repayment charges are NOT MEAFs and therefore your post isn't relevant to this thread.

To pay an early repayment charge once is careless; to pay one three times is just completely stupid. Why on earth did you buy three consecutive mortgages with redemption penalties when you clearly don't have the ability to plan your life further than one year ahead at any point in time?[/RANT MODE]

The answer to your question is NO. You have no basis to get the refund of any part of your ERCs.

But, apart from the ranting part of my first two paragraphs, I'd encourage you to think about why you incurred three lots of ERCs.

hollydays

Most boards on mse are helpful-clearly not the case here.Remember what Martin says-there is no such thing as a stupid question.

MarkyMarkD

Martin's not always right.

Martin's original article states, very clearly, that it's about MEAFs and nothing else.

There have already been more than half a dozen posts on this thread saying "what about this ERC". If people post without bothering to read the article, or the preceding posts, they are wasting their own time and cluttering up the board.

To quote the post which starts off this thread:

Extra Note - We have had lots of comments about what is and isn't included as a MEAF. The article has been updated to include the following text:

What a MEAF isn't.... don't get it confused

This is a strict ruling and only applies to exit fees. Application fees and others that are paid when originally getting the mortgage aren't included.

Also while MEAFs sound similar to ‘early repayment fees', commonly known as 'redemption penalties' again they're not the same thing. Early repayment fees are charged if you repay or switch mortgage during a special deal, such as a fixed or discount rate (see the Mortgage Guide / Remortgage Guide for details) whereas exit fees apply at all times.

It doesn't seem that hard to understand to me. Oh, and despite the question being completely off topic, I have answered it in any case.

Jet

MarkyMarkD - you are cleary quite knowledgeable and informed about this.

Remember that some people don't grasp financial matters easily and I think it is an easy mistake for some people to make.

Although it seems obvious to me and you, it's not like that for everyone.

If I were you, I'd just ignore people who keep coming along and asking about ERC's and let someone else reply.

Burnley_Lad

MarkyMarkD wrote:

Burnley_Lad

I think you're very confused about the end of February deadline.

The FSA have asked the lenders to tell them, by the end of February, what they are going to do.

One of the options which is acceptable to the FSA is to charge every customer the amount their original offer (or a later switch of product or further advance offer) stated.

There is absolutely no way that the FSA are going to tell lenders to refund everything over £55 (or, indeed, any amount). They've explicitly said that the amount lenders can charge bears no resemblance to their costs.

If the charge Halifax quoted to you when you took out your mortgage was £100 less than what they charged you on redemption, then £100 is the whole amount you are going to get. Waiting a while isn't going to change that.

ah right, I understand it now. Thanks for taking the time to explain this to me!