Was my £299 re-mortgage "admin" fee unfair?

brasso

doitmyself wrote: »

The 'lets claim everything back' bandwagon alluded to by david29dpo in post #3

How can you say you have received no service whatsoever? Is your mortgage, almost certainly the single most costly and important financial commitment you have transferred properly and accurately? If so you've received an excellent service.

And they will say no, quite rightly. Do you expect to pay nothing here or did you somehow calculate an 'appropriate' fee and detail this in your refund request?

I would like to know what piece of 'administration' costs £295. The answer? Nothing.

A database entry is modified and a couple of letters are auto-generated and sent to the mailroom along with ( I suspect) several hundreds of others, all churning out of the high-speed printer, and each of them worth a handy £295 to the building society.

But what I really want to know is what is it that apparently cost £95 when I arranged the mortgage, £195 when I renewed 2 years later, and £295 when I completed it. The answer is, once more, nothing. They charged me that sum for no other reason than that I had no choice but to pay it.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, they have agreed to refund the difference.

I should mention that I have worked for a bank and a building society, and close members of my family still do. I'm not a diehard bank critic, and think that many people underestimate the services that financial institutions provide. But to charge me nearly £300 for simply coming to the end of an agreed mortgage period (i.e. I wasn't after an early redemption) seems like unjustified opportunist profiteering to me. ££20 or £30 might be reasonable i.e. roughly the cost of someone to change my data and a contribution towards the upkeep of the IT on which my transaction is managed, but £295 is way over the top.

Anyway, I've said enough on this, and will leave you in peace.

doitmyself

brasso wrote: »

I would like to know what piece of 'administration' costs £295. The answer? Nothing.
Agree(ish) actually. I guess my thought would be that I'm happy to pay someone (or a machine, I don't care) £300 to take 2 minutes to punch a couple of keys on a keyboard and get it right rather than pay £300 for them to work all day and all night and get it wrong, bearing in mind the hassle and expense involved in that case. We shouldn't try and measure the banks' output on a £/hr basis, the net result of what they do is ultimately what matters.

But what I really want to know is what is it that apparently cost £95 when I arranged the mortgage, £195 when I renewed 2 years later, and £295 when I completed it. The answer is, once more, nothing. As above, and inflation possibly? I dunno, I'm not an economist.

They charged me that sum for no other reason than that I had no choice but to pay it. And because they are now looking for ways to claw back all that money that's going out in bank charge compensation? Even if it's not true and they'd have imposed these increases anyway they've now got a perfect excuse for raising these charges. Or maybe not? What are the rules on this, can they/can't they make a profit from these fees?

Anyway, to cut to the chase, they have agreed to refund the difference. Great. I'm genuinely pleased about that

Anyway, I've said enough on this, and will leave you in peace.

I hope not actually because you would have enough knowledge to understand this subject more than many and because this whole claiming back thing's far more complex than it's being portrayed I think. I'm a mortgagee, have re-mortgaged a few times and it's never occurred to me to dispute the charge. I don't expect it to be free, indeed I'd be a bit concerned if it was...

Re. the bank charges themselves it really is getting stupid. People who couldn't manage one a/c now have 2 or 3 (so-called parachute a/c's), so that's 2 or 3 times the confusion, and there's more than a few posts now where people have asked can they claim interest back!
I've posted elsewhere that I want any money that's owed to me refunded on the basis that if these charges are wrong they're wrong, for everyone and I would expect the banks to do whatever they have to do to fulfil their obligation to everyone, but for now ...rather you than me bud!

brasso

Fair comment, doitmyself, I don't think we actually disagree here. I don't mind the odd admin charge because I recognise that there is work involved and some weight of responsibility. It was only the steep rises from A&L (and widely discussed in the media and on these forums) that made me fed up. They've agreed to waive the most recent rise, which happened during the life of the deal, and over which I had no ability to reject, which suggests that they feel they've gone a bit too far.

If you sign up to a deal that has the charges clearly stated at the outset, and then complain about them afterwards, I'd say that's unreasonable -- just another example of someone not taking enough care of their own finances.

david29dpo

could not agree more.