Redemption administration fee challenged

mr.gnu_2

I recently tried to pay off my mortgage with the Yorkshire Building Society. They asked for £199 as a fee to close the account. I wrote them a letter challenging this and they immediately dropped it to £125 (which is what they say it was set at when I started the mortgage). I have rifled through my paperwork and cannot find any reference to a figure whatsoever so I will be challenging this also ............ watch this space.

Takecareofthepennies

I redeemed my mortgage with YBS in December.

Their various fees were listed in a separate little brochure that would have come with all the other paperwork, rather than in the main contract. However, YBS also listed the up-to-date exit fee on the annual mortgage statement.

£125 was, I believe, their previous fee level before they changed it to £199 a couple of years ago.

Incidentally, having written to them for a refund a couple of weeks ago, I am still waiting for an answer ...
How long did it take them to come back to you?

mr.gnu_2

YBS took two-weeks to reply to my second letter. My first letter was ignored but I don't have much faith in any customer services nowadays so am not surprised by this.

If I can't dent the £125 fee, I'm going to leave my balance at the £1.92 that it currently stands at and send them a cheque every month just for the fun of it. They won't administer direct debits for less than £1.

They will have to write to me every time the interest rates change and process my cheques (which will cost more than they are worth) and I have told them that this is what I intend to do.

It will be interesting to see what happens next.

Takecareofthepennies

I like the guerilla tactics ... Good luck!
Keep us informed.

To be fair on them, as far as customer service goes, I have experienced far worse than YBS.