NEW Mortgage Exit Fees Discussion

toozie_2

Morning

I have read martin's article, and can't seem to find the answer to this-or maybe I'm dumb!

Our motgage is coming to the end of the 25 year term. For the last 4/5 years we've been with the Abbey, before that for 5 years (I think) we were with The Principality B Soc. I have sent off the letter to Principality regarding the fee, I didn't have a reference number, but I had the actual date of full repayment from the Abbey, and our name or the address haven't changed, so I hope I get a response there.

Before we went to the Principality, we had always been with HSBC (Midland Bank) between 1982 and 1996 (ish!).
From 82 to 1989 we had a 'staff mortgage' then it was transfered to another type of loan (differnet account number-higher int rate etc) from '89 to repayment by Principality.

My querries are:

1. Is it too late to claim to the HSBC for the repayment in 1996? Would I have been overcharged then? Can we go back that long ago with a claim?

2. I don't know if I was charged anything incorrectly in 1989 (or were they not doing such things then??) when the loan was recalculated, and transfered to another type of mortgage?

I have no correspondence from Midland (HSBC) at all, although it has always been the same property?

Thanks for help in advance.

dk67

dk67 wrote: »

Thanks for making this so clear Scott.

Before i saw this post, I took the plunge and phoned RBS. The man I spoke to was actually really apologetic that I just missed the cut off point for MEAF partial refund and said he is not at all adverse to paying out refunds when due...

So I would advise any ex-RBS customers to phone and claim. All I had was my mortgage account number - I phoned 08457 212600

UPDATE:
Despite this I wrote to RBS and argued that I felt unfairly disadvantaged as I just missed the cut off point, and that I could see no justification why the sealing fee costs were so high......

Have just opened my mail to a cheque for £150!:j

Thanks Martin :money: I wouldnt have dreamt of trying something like this in a million years!!!

Have had a crappy time lately so this money is a real help.:T

Keep trying everyone

dunstonh

1. Is it too late to claim to the HSBC for the repayment in 1996? Would I have been overcharged then? Can we go back that long ago with a claim?

Charges didnt start going up until around 2003 so there is little point going back earlier than that.

MarkyMarkD

Not to mention that any claim is (legally speaking) statute barred if over 6 years old so a claim from 11 years ago is way out of time.

Principality aren't paying up in any cases at all, because they believe that their (very low - £115 IIRC) MEAF represents costs. They are one of the few lenders taking this approach but they've clearly had the OK for it from the FSA.

tracyb75

hi, we had a mortgage with 'bank of scotland' i have called them asking for details of the MEAF's. they have sent me a letter saying that we signed an agreement to say we would pay them. but they are talking about redemption fees. now i know we can't claim that back. they say they are all together. i have asked for specific details of the MEAF's not the redemption fees. anyone else had problems with the bank of scotland?

dk67

Hi Tracyb75

Read my post (3 back from this I think)

Royal Bank of Scotland call it a Sealing Fee. This is what you should be asking to reclaim.

I was told by RBS my mortgage was taken out before the cut off point - so I wrote a letter stating I could not see the justifcation in raising the Sealing Fee so much ........ and within 5 days they sent me a cheque for £150 (the difference between the fee when i took my mortgage out and when I redeemed it)

So phone the mortgage centre and ask how much the sealing fee is on your contract.

Good luck

debbie100

smigger15 wrote: »

I rang Abbey National and they send out a standard form to fill in with your dets on and return it. Only one sheet so relatively easy. I'll post if i hear anything.;)

Hi there,i had a mortgage with a company called i-group,who have now been taken over by ge money,i switched my mortgage over 2 years ago but arnt sure if i paid an exit fee,tried calling but office closed,has anyone else been with igroup and would know if they did charge fees. Many thanks.

Noz

dk67, I think traceyb75 is referring to BoS rather than RBS

pandapaws

Hi!

My success might help others who have had their claim declined...

Our initial claim to the Scarborough Buioding Society was refused because they said that the amount we paid (£245) was correct according to the mortgage offer that we had accepted and signed for. Fair enough.

But that mortgage offer wasn't a totally new mortgage - it was a re-mortgage as we were moving house and had to either take the mortgage with us to the new house, or face huge redemption penalties for the fixed rate we had. I asked them what the original exit fees would have been on the first mortgage we'd had, as those were the ones we had agreed to - we hadn't have the option to disagree when we moved.

They wrote back saying that it was their right to vary these fees, and we had accepted them when we moved/remortgaged, and they therefore still denied the claim BUT they'd send us the £100 difference anyway as a gesture of goodwill!!!

So if anyone else ported their mortgage to avoid redemption penalties when they moved house and the fees changed at that point, then they may well have a second shot at getting them back if they challenge the change.

Thanks to this site for prompting me to claim in the first place - good luck all!

MarkyMarkD

It wasn't a remortgage, pandapaws, it was a port of your existing mortgage terms as you correctly state later in your post.

I understand your argument, but it's not strictly correct. You DID take out a new mortgage, and they DID have the right to vary the terms at that stage. All that porting does is allow you to avoid the ERC on your original mortgage by transferring the existing product terms - meaning rate and length of fix/discount, but arguably not meaning things like MEAFs which could be argued to be specific to the mortgage itself and not the product.

You say you didn't have the option to disagree when you moved - but you did. You could have paid the ERC and started a new mortgage elsewhere, or with them on the new terms.

It's a fine line and not one which is clear either way. I'm glad that they've seen your point of view.