NEW Mortgage Exit Fees Discussion

MarkyMarkD

Slubberd

Your question was answered in Martin's article, which this thread is a response to. It's also answered in the very first post in the thread.

Perhaps a general piece of advice might be useful - if a thread refers to an article, read the article first. And if it's a thread about an article, there will always be an introductory post by a member of the MSE team, which will normally be quite informative.

Hope that helps.

MarkyMarkD

Tilly/D wrote: »

Recently, we have sold a building plot off and the Bristol and West demanded all the money from the sale to pay back the small mortgage, eventually they agreed on half the money, which when the mortgage was taken out in 2004, the valuation report for B & W stated they had not included the land at the back. They have charged us £50.00 administration fees and also our solicitor has paid them £100, we presume also for administration. Do you think it is worth a rumble?

You have sold part of the security for the loan. That involves B&W in getting your file out and providing all necessary information to your solicitor - hence the £100 which is probably a "deeds production fee" or similar.

They are perfectly within their rights to do all of what they've done.

It's perfectly normal to require you to use any partial sale proceeds to repay the mortgage - at the end of the day, you borrowed the money to buy the property and if you sell part of it, you no longer need that part of the money for the original purpose. If you happen to want to use that money for something else, that's a new reason for a loan.

Nothing you've mentioned is a reclaimable fee, and nothing you've mentioned is relevant to this thread about MEAFs. It would have been better posted as a separate thread.

Slubberd

MarkyMarkD wrote: »

Slubberd

Your question was answered in Martin's article, which this thread is a response to. It's also answered in the very first post in the thread.

Perhaps a general piece of advice might be useful - if a thread refers to an article, read the article first. And if it's a thread about an article, there will always be an introductory post by a member of the MSE team, which will normally be quite informative.

Hope that helps.

Yes thanks. I think my major peeve was actually the way in which one of your forum members responded to me..but not to worry. I did read the article and must have missed it. I guess being human just isn't acceptable nowadays. What a shame. The issue is now closed- Thank you so much for your help.

ladybrady

After reading the discussion, i rang our old Mortgage provider Chelsea Building Society and explained that we left the company in August 2005. I gave them the account number and they told me i was entitled to a £90 refund!!! Received the cheque today!! Thanks very much:j

SUNNYJUNE

:rotfl:

foolsgold99 wrote: »

Hello, I'm in the same boat as Funny-about-munny and would really apprecaiate some help and advice. I took out my forst mortgage with the Halifax in Dec 2004. I just remortgaged (to Nationwide) in Jan 2007. I noticed that on my final Halifax statement it says "Repayment Admin Fee = £175.00". I don't have the original Halifax document which states what the repayment charge would be. Does anyone know if I can claim anything back and if so what is the best way to do it?
Thank you very much in advance. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Hi, We took out a mortgage with the Halifax in 1995 and remortgaged last year. We didn't have, or couldn't find, any of the original documents either. We were also charged the admin fee of £175.00. A couple of weeks ago we filled in the templet letter from this site. Yesterday we received a letter confirming they shall refund £135.00 as the original fee was only £40. Worth the price of a stamp then!

In their letter the Halifax explained the refund is 'a gesture of good will'....what a caring company they are!!!

Mortgage_Jim

The key thing here is that the FSA have become very strict with the lenders as it was unfair to quote one exit fee when the mortgage was originally sold and then change the contract years later. I'm pretty sure that this will be the beginning of the end for exit fees - the justification is that they have to 'administer' you leaving them, however have you not just paid them large amounts of interest while you were tied into their product term!?! I believe that we will begin to see lenders scrapping them completely due to many factors such as unforseen costs to them and the bad publicity!

Noz

Mortgage_Jim wrote: »

The key thing here is that the FSA have become very strict with the lenders as it was unfair to quote one exit fee when the mortgage was originally sold and then change the contract years later. I'm pretty sure that this will be the beginning of the end for exit fees - the justification is that they have to 'administer' you leaving them, however have you not just paid them large amounts of interest while you were tied into their product term!?! I believe that we will begin to see lenders scrapping them completely due to many factors such as unforseen costs to them and the bad publicity!

You're a bit late Mortgage Jim

Mortgage_Jim

Indded, but nice to put my point of view down!

viewsonice

Hi please can anyone help, I asked Alliance&Leicester what my start fee was and the exit fee and to send me any differene back they said they have a team that deals with this and i would get a reply back. I recieved a letter stating, Alliance&Leicester first introduced a single administration fee of £195 from 5 January 2004 called the Early closure Administration charge and this fee was increased in August 2004 to £295. However, we have decided to reduce the fee payable to customers who took out their mortgage before August 2004 to the original level. Having reviewed our records, I am pleased to enclose a cheque for £10 refunding the difffernce between the fees in place at the time you took a mortgage with us compared to the £85 fee that was incurred on closure of your account. If I have not heard from you within the next 7 days, I will regard your coplaint as closed. I have not got any proof how much I paid them but I think I paid the full amount. Has anyone else cliamed back during this period with Alliance&leicester and got back more money than £10. Thanks ViewSonic

MarkyMarkD

Mortgage_Jim wrote: »

The key thing here is that the FSA have become very strict with the lenders as it was unfair to quote one exit fee when the mortgage was originally sold and then change the contract years later. I'm pretty sure that this will be the beginning of the end for exit fees - the justification is that they have to 'administer' you leaving them, however have you not just paid them large amounts of interest while you were tied into their product term!?! I believe that we will begin to see lenders scrapping them completely due to many factors such as unforseen costs to them and the bad publicity!

I don't think you're right at all, Jim.

The FSA has dealt with the issue of fees increasing during the term, and that's all well and good.

But it's far better for mortgage customers to pay an up-front agreed exit fee, than an up-front agreed application fee.

Why does anyone imagine it is better to pay something now than at some point in the future when you redeem your mortgage?

Why shouldn't lenders reward loyalty by deferring the payment of an exit fee until the borrower exits?

A few lenders (far fewer than half of the lenders, thus far) have scrapped exit fees. Most of them have either increased their up-front fees or don't charge competitive rates in any case.

You claim that

have you not just paid them large amounts of interest while you were tied into their product termp

but the chances are that whilst it may seem like a lot of interest to you, it's actually loss-making for the lender. Every single best buy mortgage, over any product term, is loss making for the lender. Lenders ONLY make money because of application and exit fees AND because of the minority of customers who stay on after the product discount/fixed term ends.