Mortgage Exit Fees discussion

MarkyMarkD

Potton_Man wrote:

Hi there

I began my repayment mortgage with Abbey in 1990. I paid off the mortgage in late 2006 and was charged £225. In the light of recent publicity, I wrote to Abbey and received a cheque for £170, which according to them represents the difference between £225 and "the charge stated in my mortgage contract".

The problem is that I still have documentation that I received in 1990 - General Terms and Conditions, Mortgage Offer and Special Conditions - and nowhere does it mention anything at all about exit/redemption/closure fees. Nothing whatsoever.

I am following this up with Abbey, but in the meantime, does anyone have any idea of whether Abbey actually levied a charge for redemption/early exit in 1990, and if so, what it was? I am suspicious because their reply implies that the charge in 1990 was £55 (£225 minus £170), and if the table on Mr Lewis's website is correct, the charge was only £50 in 1997. In other words, the charge was less in 1997 than it was in 1990. Seems unlikely??!!

I note that someone else made a similar request in message #49 (with no success); also note that the This is Money website says that Abbey charged '£99 up to 2005' (message 93) (in which case they have been overly kind to me(!); and I note MarkyMark's comments that general info about these charges would have been contained in leaflets issued at the time - unfortunately, although I have plenty of original paperwork, none of them are leaflets.

Thanks for any help you can give me

Alec

Unfortunately there have been few responses in this thread providing specific fee information at specific points in time; if the This is Money article doesn't include the information then you are probably not going to get it.

The This is Money article doesn't seem to be getting updated at all either - there have been many requests on there for additional information, none of which have been answered.

I think that if you have been refunded back to £55 you have done well and it probably isn't worth flogging the dead horse any longer.

jtotheb

jtotheb wrote:

Just been looking through my paperwork for the Cheltenham and Gloucester mortgage I took out in Novemeber 2001 and redeemed in mid-2003. They charged me a £100 'closing admin fee'.

However, I can't find anywhere in my original agreement where it states that there would be such a fee. There's mention of the early redemption penalty but nothing about an MEAF.

Does anyone have or had a mortgage with C&G from this time and can help me with locating where the fee would be mentioned?

Got some good news! I sent them a letter asking for a refund of the fee and lo and behold, I receive a cheque for £60.63 from them! Apparently the closing admin fee at the time I took out the mortgage was £50 so the refund is made up of £50 difference plus £10.63 interest. What a result!

No arguments, nothing. That's got to be one of the most valuable letters I've ever written!

jap200

Can anyone shed any light on Intelligent Finance?

We had a mortgage with them from 2001 to 2004. However, when I called them with the mortgage roll number the girl on the phone said that all she was able to tell me is that the charge is now £140. She said that she had no idea how to find out what it was when our mortgage started or ended.

Total opposite to Halifax who identified within about 30 seconds that we paid £75 rather than the £50 in our contract. OK, not a huge sum, but easy money all the same!

jake1703

I spoke to A&L yesterday and insisted I wanted the full refund that I requested, A&L asked me to return the cheque with a covering letter and they would look at my case on an "individual basis."

I'll let you know how I got on.

Am I asking stupid or irrelevant questions on the forum? I wondering why my original post didn't recieve a single reply.

Still think it's a very useful forum/site.

Jake

jake1703 wrote:

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.

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

tellyerworraldowivyer

To MarkyMarkD
"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 did say that I was fully aware that ERC's are non negotiable in my original post, I just wanted to know if there might be any MEAF fees built in that I could enquire about.

07311022

MarkyMarkD wrote:

There's no reason why you shouldn't pay the £175 as you DID redeem the original mortgage and the fee is for redeeming that mortgage.

The fact that you ported the loan to a new property doesn't affect that.

Thanks for that I managed to get someone at the Halifax to explain this. They have agree to refund £25 for this part though even though it was only for a few short months, as that is the amount it increased in the time I had the mortgage. Person at the Halifax also sorted out the Halifax Loans section, so we are to get £35 for that part. So £60 so far. Just waiting for Standard Life to come back to me. Have been promised a return phone call on Friday/Monday, so fingers crossed.

MarkyMarkD

tellyerworraldowivyer wrote:

To MarkyMarkD
"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 did say that I was fully aware that ERC's are non negotiable in my original post, I just wanted to know if there might be any MEAF fees built in that I could enquire about.

The MEAF should normally be stated separately.

MarkyMarkD

jake1703 wrote:

I spoke to A&L yesterday and insisted I wanted the full refund that I requested, A&L asked me to return the cheque with a covering letter and they would look at my case on an "individual basis."

I'll let you know how I got on.

Am I asking stupid or irrelevant questions on the forum? I wondering why my original post didn't recieve a single reply.

Still think it's a very useful forum/site.

Jake

Sorry, missed your original post among all the others. Can't explain why the A&L refund cheque was for £100.

BettyBlue_3

I have just read the mortgage exit fees article and wondered whether anyone knew about being charged for changing your mortgage with the same provider??

I am in the process of moving my sole mortgage to a joint mortgage with my partner for double the loan. Halifax, who I have been with for nearly 4 years in a 5-year fixed rate, are charging me £175 Repayment Admin Fee and £50 Deeds Despatch Fee. I can understand the Deeds Despatch Fee being charged as a new name will be on the mortgage, but are they right to charge the Repayment Admin Fee when I am staying with them and increasing the loan and repayments?

MarkyMarkD

BettyBlue wrote:

I have just read the mortgage exit fees article and wondered whether anyone knew about being charged for changing your mortgage with the same provider??

I am in the process of moving my sole mortgage to a joint mortgage with my partner for double the loan. Halifax, who I have been with for nearly 4 years in a 5-year fixed rate, are charging me £175 Repayment Admin Fee and £50 Deeds Despatch Fee. I can understand the Deeds Despatch Fee being charged as a new name will be on the mortgage, but are they right to charge the Repayment Admin Fee when I am staying with them and increasing the loan and repayments?

Your situation is an interesting one. I think it turns on what is actually happening with your mortgage account.

If you were simply adding a borrower to an existing mortgage account, I would have considered that you were not redeeming it - you were simply undertaking a transfer of equity. Most lenders would charge a specific fee for the transfer of equity, but NOT charge a fee for redemption administration as they wouldn't treat this as a redemption.

If, you were borrowing additional funds, I would expect you to get charged a further advance fee, but not a redemption administration charge (MEAF) as once again you wouldn't be redeeming your original loan.

It sounds like, for some strange reason, Halifax are treating your situation (which on the face of it is merely a combination of the two processes above) as a redemption and a new mortgage advance. I think that they are wrong to do this. If they are doing it this way for their own convenience (or because their systems won't let them do a transfer of equity in a more logical way) then I think that's up to them, but they shouldn't make you pay extra for the privilege.

If you could confirm that the £175 is actually an MEAF and not a transfer of equity or further advance fee, then I think that you should challenge them as I don't believe an MEAF should be due.