NEW Mortgage Exit Fees Discussion

wooders

£25 from birmingham midshires

woohoo

they have a special unit dealing with meafs now:T

jen20

I sent off my letter to reclaim exit fees on Monday 14th April 2008. My husband received a call from Royal Bank of Scotland mortgage centre on Wednesday 16th April 2008. Money was refunded in his account later that day.

Thanks a lot, all this for the price of a stamp!!

Anyone can do this....................

Degs45

wooders wrote: »

£25 from birmingham midshires

woohoo

they have a special unit dealing with meafs now:T

Just had a reply of BM ..
We are sorry you are not happy with the amount paid ,this fee covers administration and processing of any documents when you redeem your mortgage .This fee is routinely charged throughout the financial industry and you were made aware at the time you took the mortgage out. When we opened the account it was stated the charge was £150 , we were charged £100 therefore we are unable to uphold your complaint and offer a refund.
If we do not hear again within 8 weeks we will consider the matter closed.
If you are not satisfied you may refer it back to the customer relations team for a final review..


hmmmm

is it worth continuing ?

MarkyMarkD

kidtechnical I'm confused by your post. You say that your contract states the fee which in fact you've been charged - in which case no refund is due.

Regarding the transfer fee, it depends what the transfer fee relates to. Can you clarify when during the life of the mortgage it was charged?

kidtechnical

Hi thanks for the reply...

My mortgage contract has a £225 mortgage administration fee. After posting on here I called Abbey and asked about the fees. I was told that the £225 mortgage administration fee is an exit fee that I have to pay when I settle the loan (final payment) and that the £75 transfer fee was because I moved to a new rate. These fee's appeared on my contract when I switched from one mortgage with Abbey to another with Abbey following my fixed rate expiring.

HTH?

MarkyMarkD

Then the £75 fee is perfectly legal and there's nothing to do about it. You chose to switch to a new rate and that was their charge for doing so. And the £225 fee was what you agreed when you bought the mortgage.

You haven't got a case for reclaiming anything.

kidtechnical

Thanks markymark, so just to clarify, exit fees are not legal, but if they say the exit fee is zero, then charge you what is ultimately an exit fee by another name (mortgage administration fee) then that is legal?

Noz

kidtechnical wrote: »

Thanks markymark, so just to clarify, exit fees are not legal, but if they say the exit fee is zero, then charge you what is ultimately an exit fee by another name (mortgage administration fee) then that is legal?

Think you have the situation slightly wrong, exits fees (MEAFs) are perfectly legal .
Where there are cases of reclaimable fees (or partial refunds) is where the company have charged more than they stated in the mortgage contract - the difference should be refunded to the customer. As there is no difference in your case, there is nothing the reclaim/refund.

jamiecg74

I wrote to Kensington last week regarding a redemption overpayment when we changed our mortgage two years ago and have just had this response from them. I have had a letter back from them, I have typed up half the letter from them:

“Further to the recent statement of good practice made by the FSA, we have now considered our position and would like to take this opportunity to explain to you in relation to the above numbered mortgage.

By accepting your mortgage offer issued on 15/9/2003 you agreed to become bound by all terms and conditions during the term of your mortgage.

The tariff of charges that accompanied your offer clearly detailed the MEAF as a redemption admin fee.

The tariff also made clear that the fees shown we liable to change in the future and that you would be notified of any such changes as and when they occurred.

I confirm that the redemption fee is charged in respect of the additional work that is undertaken on behalf of the customer when the account redeems. The additional work that is involved during the redemption process includes, but is not restricted to the following:

Applying redemption monies to a mortgage account.
Preparing and issuing applicable refunds
Ensuring our charges are removed from the land registry.
Our fees compare favourably to those applied by other lenders in the market with the smallest increases made over the last decade.

In consideration of this and the work undertaken I remain satisfied that our redemption admin fee represents a reasonable estimate of the costs we incur as a result of a mortgage account redeeming. Our fees are also reviewed regularly to ensure that this continues to be the case. The FSA statement explains that the lender in this case Kensington Mortgages should be able to justify and increase in any MEAF. And with this in mind that I would like to explain the reasons why our MEAF increased from £100 to £145. As a business it is vital that we are able to operate as a viable commercial operation. There are instances where increases ion the costs we incur have to be factored into the costs associated with undertaking admin work on behalf of our customers.

It goes on to end……………


I feel it would be beneficial to both parties to treat this letter as our final response.



Have I got a case if I were to take this further, or would I be wasting my time??

Jamie

times2

My first post.

Thanks to everyone out there for their great advice.

I sent off a letter regarding the exit fee to Abbey last month and three weeks later received a cheque for £126. They charged me £225 instead of the £99 in the contract.

Great news!

Many thanks!