Bristol & West Mortgage Redemption Charges

shady99

Hi chaps

Like everyone I have challenged my lender to justify their Mortgage Redemption Charge of £195 - in the hope that I would get a nice fat figure back - along the lines of a number of successful comments which people have posted on this site from other lenders.

However, I have just received a letter back from Bristol & West outlining their justification as follows:-

"Bristol & West produce as many redemption statements as requested leading up to the redemption of a mortgage. We deal with all related correspondence and liase with you and / or yuor solicitors during the process. We accept and process the final payment, close the mortgage account, release any registration and pre-registration documents, and discharge our charge at the Land Registry".

"There are other activities involved during the redemption process, which are covered by the fee. Non-exhaustive examples of these include the transfer of the redemtption monies from our general bank account to the mortgage account, quality checks undertaken to ensure amounts and account details are accurate, and reporting of the redemption activities between our Finance and Mortgage Services Departments. Several Bristol & West staff are required in order to facilitate the above administration and redemption of your mortgage account"

They state that, when I took out my mortgage in October 1998, the charges were outlined in their document 'Your Guide to Mortgage Charges' - however I cannot locate this document to confirm.

Would anyone have a copy of this document (from October 1998), and if so, could they send me a copy or advise me of the contents ? Please PM me if this is possible.

They state that there original cost is made up of 10 days interest and and administration fee of £87.50. What they have stated is that as a gesture of goodwill, they would reimburse me the difference between how much I actually paid (£195), and the cost it should have been if they had applied their original charges (£170) - therefore I can look forward to the princely sum of £25.

My question is this though - although Bristol & West have justified the costs and state that these were known to me in advance, surely these tasks are no different to what other organisations have to go through - and these lenders have paid up as the charges made were not reflective of the actual work required.

Should I accept the offer, or write back and reject this on the above grounds ? If so, I could do with more information to help back up my claim, so if anyone could help that would be much appreciated.


Many thanks

MarkyMarkD

shady99 wrote: »

My question is this though - although Bristol & West have justified the costs and state that these were known to me in advance, surely these tasks are no different to what other organisations have to go through - and these lenders have paid up as the charges made were not reflective of the actual work required.

You have misunderstood.

Other lenders have NOT refunded amounts on the basis of a comparison to actual costs.

Other lenders have done the same as B&W - they have refunded on the basis of a comparison to the amount originally quoted to customers when they took out their mortgage.

The £25 refund is therefore in line with the FSA's ruling, which specifically did NOT require lenders to charge in line with costs.

To paraphrase the FSA's ruling: Lenders can charge any amount they like, as long as it's disclosed at the time the mortgage offer is made and not revised thereafter other than by the customer's agreement at the time of a product switch or further advance.

B&W are in an unusual situation because their original MEAF included this 10 days interest term, meaning that for many people the current MEAF (which has abandoned that term) and the original MEAF are very similar. In some cases, the current MEAF is actually lower and B&W are hence not required by the FSA ruling to make any refund.

Hope that helps.

shady99

Thanks for the info - as much as I thought to be honest.

However, the front page table does give an example of fees and states that Bristol & West's charges from 10 years ago was around £50, and states that this info was gleaned from another site. I have checked that site and cannot easily find the info.

Wheer would MSE have got this figure off and is it worth pursuing the £145 over the £50 stated in this table ?

I know this table is not the official word - but I hate to give up without a fight.

Thanks

MarkyMarkD

The £50 in the table is wrong, because it ignores (probably because the creator of the table wasn't aware of) the 10 days' interest rule. So no, I don't think it's worth pursuing it.