remortgaging with same company - charged a fee?!

sssstew

Hi all

I negociated a new deal with my current lender now my initial 2 year fixed rate is up, but to change to this new deal (and no go to their terrible SVR) im being charged £274!!

Now i was reading the following article about reclaiming remortgage fees :-

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1170081918,22653

But it seems to relate if you only moved lenders or ended a mortgage, is this the same for me do you think?

should i query the high £274? Ive already initially said to them on the phone that this is high and anything you can do but she said no (no surprise!)

Thanks
Stewart

LisaT186

Most lenders will charge you a fee to change products with them, it will vary dependant on the rate you take. The lower the rate, the higher the fee normally. £274 is not unusally high, they normally vary between £99 and £999, but averaging around £250.

sssstew

oh right... thats a bummer then.

so ive got no chance of getting it reduced at all do you think?

shameless-about-money

If you read it correctly it says -

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.

It sounds as if your fees are for the new mortgage, not exit fees for the old one, since it had finished it's original contract.

LisaT186

Don't think you will have a chance I'm afraid, its all part of the product design. Also it is not changing, you agreed to pay that fee to get that rate. It's a bit like walking into a new lender and agreeing a rate with an arrangement fee.

Duracell118

I was charged a total of £645 to stay with same provider but change product after tie in period - £395 product fee (fair enough) AND £250 switching fee!

I didn't really have a choice because they would have charged £295 exit fee if I went to a new provider who were charging £399 product fees for identical offers. So, it would've cost £694 to change provider.

I feel the switching fee is too high and the exit fee makes other providers offers uncompetitive. In addition, I was under the impression that exit fees were to cover costs of title deed transferral etc. but in this case the title deeds were not going anywhere. So, what exactly was the £250 spent on?

I wrote a letter of complaint 7 days ago asking for a refund of the £250. I have not received a reply yet and when it does arrive I can't say I'm too hopefull.

LisaT186

Duracell118 wrote:

I was charged a total of £645 to stay with same provider but change product after tie in period - £395 product fee (fair enough) AND £250 switching fee!

I didn't really have a choice because they would have charged £295 exit fee if I went to a new provider who were charging £399 product fees for identical offers. So, it would've cost £694 to change provider.

I feel the switching fee is too high and the exit fee makes other providers offers uncompetitive. In addition, I was under the impression that exit fees were to cover costs of title deed transferral etc. but in this case the title deeds were not going anywhere. So, what exactly was the £250 spent on?

I wrote a letter of complaint 7 days ago asking for a refund of the £250. I have not received a reply yet and when it does arrive I can't say I'm too hopefull.

Alliance and Leicester by any chance? Think they have been paying up on exit fees, but not on fees to stay with them, again you agree to that fee to swap. Good Luck though - don't ask don't get!

Duracell118

Thanks for that. Yes indeed, A&L. I started a new thread about this because there was a technical problem with the forum this afternoon and I didn't think my reply worked - oops! Fairly obvious I'm new to this game.