Nat West letter saying accounts are to be closed??

chambta

Yes business account have overdrafts that have review dates and expire (date notified when facility applied) so whether the bank called or not the customer has a responsibility to notify the bank whether or not they wish to renew, paying the appropriate arrangement fee.

What about the statements received over the year showing charges and no overdraft facility?

Sommer43

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18540832

Banks do close accounts without giving an explanation. They do not have to.

From what you have written, OP, how your brother has managed his account could mean the bank sees his financial behaviour as poor and that alone could mean they no longer want him as a customer. You say it is only a £100 a day for a few days. They say it is their money being borrowed without permission.

It is odd that there has been no notification about this previously, so that may well be his line of complaint. And as I said earlier, there could well be a marker against his name from fraud prevention agencies. Losing the plot in the bank will do him no favours. Getting to the bottom of the problem will. He could well find it difficult to open another bank account.

helentay_2

innovate wrote: »

That's just silly. He owes them £578, and if he doesn't pay it back, his credit record will suffer. He will not hurt the bank, but will hurt himself.

From what he has told me, there will now be a record on his credit files that a Default Notice has been issued.
According to that notice, he has 30 days to repay the full amount. Failure to pay that amount will result in legal proceedings/and/or right of set off.
Whether he pays it back in full or not will not change the information on the files except that if it is paid back within the 30 days a note to the effect that the debt has been settled in full. There will still remain a 'black' mark against him. Based on that, he says that it doesn't really matter then what he decides to do, the damage has already happened.

If I were him, I wouldn't be so sure that this is true. Has he looked at his credit records, what is on there that is wrong, what has he done to get the wrong bits removed?

No to be honest, he hasn't - he is only going by what the bank have told him. There are no 'wrong' bits as such, he owes the money which the bank are demanding back in full within 30 days. The other 4 letters which deal with the private joint current & savings accounts also state that they will be closed at the same time. In other words if you don't pay up we don't want you or your wife darkening our door ever again!

If that is so, a calm and reasonable discuss with the bank surely can resolve the matter amicably, without trashing your brother's credit records.

The bank (Business Recovery Unit) were very clear with him - there is no discussion other than 1. give us the full amount within 30 days in which case you may be allowed to continue to avail yourselves of private banking and saving, 2. Fail to pay in full within the 30 days you will have the money taken from your private savings/current accounts, a cheque will be sent to you for the balance and you may no longer be allowed to bank with us anymore, 3. Fail to pay the full amount within the 30 days and if you yourself close your private banking facilities, we will instigate legal proceedings against you.

Now if that is called having a discussion 'with the bank surely can resolve the matter amicably' I must be missing something - I call it 'someone holding a gun at your head and asking which side do you want the bullet to go in'!

Again, this sounds silly and emotional. A formal complaint, in writing, seems to be a sensible way to go about resolving this matter. If your brother does not get a satisfactory answer from NatWest within 8 weeks, he can take his case to the FoS for final arbitration. He has got the law on his side all the way, why would he want to throw his rights away in a strop?

That is how I would deal with it but it seems that the bank are holding all of the aces. He now has 29 days to comply, but maybe wait 8 weeks for a reply to the complaint? Isn't it the case of 'pay now' and complain later?

I know that I am only a 3rd party in all of this, but I must admit I have never found my brother to be anything but honest and truthful. If, and I believe him, the bank has now taken this stance, how is someone supposed to fight back. The bank have admitted that they should have had a discussion back in April 2012 but they failed to. I know what my brother would have said at that meeting if the bank said that there was a problem - increase the overdraft to £600! That would have been the time to have a sensible across the table discussion.
Yes he will complain after he has secured his money and brought the business account down to below what he believed was still his limit of £500 by transferring £100 over in the morning.

helentay_2

lolavix wrote: »

Are you sure there's nothing more to this? Business overdrafts are rarely withdrawn without reason, and how did he not notice?

No honestly there isn't. Yes he went over his limit of £500 a few times without permission by no more than £100 at any time.

He received his statements every month and even this evening looking at them again there is no indication that there was no overdraft facility.
Of course he received a few letters telling him that he had gone over by sometimes only £40 and could he rectify it - advising that he had incurred a penalty charge.

Apart from that he has not received any other letters and believed that he had a good working relationship with the bank. The last time he actually spoke to someone at the bank about the account was more than 12 months ago.

helentay_2

meer53 wrote: »

I don't think the OP has all the facts.

Their brother should make a complaint to Natwest about whats happened. If what they say is true, they have a good case, i feel though that there may be something missing from this story.

Making deposits the day after you go over an overdraft will always be seen as poor financial management. Natwest haven't demolished the credit file, they aren't the ones who have spent money that wasn't there. If, however, Natwest removed the overdraft without letting him know, then they should be looking to amend whatever is recorded. Depends on whether they contacted him or not.

If, as the OP says, he went over the overdraft on more than a few occasions, i can't believe he didn't receive anything from them.

I do have all of the facts, I have had hours this evening going over and over everything with him.
Yes he should not have gone over in the first place, and he should have been proactive and asked for a more realistic overdraft limit. With movements of money well in excess of £6000 a week, having a £500 limit is way too low in my opinion, but hey it's his business, he tries never to have an overdraft at all. Looking at the bank statements I would say that out of an average week, 5 out of 7 days shows a balance of £8000 credit!

Of course he received their letters advising him of the overlimit situation. I have seen 5 such letters received in a 12 month period advising of between £40 and £100 over. Looking at the bank statement he had paid cheques in the day or so before but they hadn't cleared. On one occasion he did pay in two days late. The problem as I see it is that it took too long for these cheques to clear and hit the bank, in the meantime he had to draw on funds that had cleared.

helentay_2

chambta wrote: »

Yes business account have overdrafts that have review dates and expire (date notified when facility applied) so whether the bank called or not the customer has a responsibility to notify the bank whether or not they wish to renew, paying the appropriate arrangement fee.

What about the statements received over the year showing charges and no overdraft facility?

But that is the point, the statements do not show that he doesn't have a facility.

helentay_2

Sommer43 wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18540832

Banks do close accounts without giving an explanation. They do not have to.

From what you have written, OP, how your brother has managed his account could mean the bank sees his financial behaviour as poor and that alone could mean they no longer want him as a customer. You say it is only a £100 a day for a few days. They say it is their money being borrowed without permission.

It is odd that there has been no notification about this previously, so that may well be his line of complaint. And as I said earlier, there could well be a marker against his name from fraud prevention agencies. Losing the plot in the bank will do him no favours. Getting to the bottom of the problem will. He could well find it difficult to open another bank account.

Maybe, but he is a very hot headed person especially when he believes that others are just at fault yet refuse to accept any responsibility. Of course they apologised, but like he said to me when he came over, it was how they apologised, there was no sincerity. He was more than willing to put his hands in the air and accept his shortcomings, but only if the bank would do the same. He was more than willing to transfer £100 there and then to put it right. But they refused to accept that and stated that they wanted full payment or else!

It was that 'or else' bit that annoyed him. he warned them then not to put a gun to his head or threaten him.
He told them that he was more than willing to sit and talk, but they were in no mood to listen - their agenda was to get a full settlement and no overdraft. It was at that point that he lost it and asked how was he supposed or expected to trade with no overdraft facility. The Business Debt Recovery people just said that he may be allowed an overdraft sometime in the future - maybe after 6 months or so if he complied with their request for full settlement now. They told him that if he pushed it he would not only have no overdraft facility but no banking facility either!
Hence the reason why he told them where they could put their facility - apparently not those words, but being a lady, I don't want to post what he actually told them it wasn't pleasant!!

He knows what the bottom of the problem is, the bank have decided that they no longer want his business or his and his wife's business. I presume as you and others have said it has something to do with going overdrawn without the bank's permission which I find incredible given the substantial amount of money that passes through his business account.

Oh I forgot to add, after reading the letters again in front of me, right at the bottom it says that his business account has been frozen and that he must not use his chequebook and must hand in his debit card. I don't think he has seen that bit, I must tell him in the morning that he must sort out a temporary home for the cheques he has to pay in until a more permanent arrangement can be found otherwise they will take the whole debt out of his future deposits. Wow it goes from bad to worse!!

innovate

helentay wrote: »

Of course he received a few letters telling him that he had gone over by sometimes only £40 and could he rectify it - advising that he had incurred a penalty charge.

helentay wrote: »

Of course he received their letters advising him of the overlimit situation. I have seen 5 such letters received in a 12 month period advising of between £40 and £100 over. Looking at the bank

I reckon herein lies some explanation as to why Natwest seem to have run out of patience. If you habitually go into unarranged overdrafts, you would expect the bank to close your account(s) because you have demonstrated that you are unable to manage your financial affairs. Why did your brother never go into the bank, or at least call them, to establish an overdraft limit suitable for his circumstances? Or better still, why did he not manage his affairs so he wouldn't repeatedly end up overdrawn (arranged or unarranged)?

helentay wrote: »

No to be honest, he hasn't - he is only going by what the bank have told him. There are no 'wrong' bits as such, he owes the money which the bank are demanding back in full within 30 days.

The "wrong bits" I was referring to might be on the credit records. Since he hasn't seen his credit file, he doesn't know what is on there. I am amazed he would not check his credit files himself and instead believe what a 3rd party tell him. I'm afraid, this is yet another indication that your brother does not manage his financial affairs very well.

pmduk

helentay wrote: »

But that is the point, the statements do not show that he doesn't have a facility.

That would imply that they don't say that he has an overdraft facility.

duchy

I would take NatWest up on their offer to make it an official complaint. I had some issues with them and the branch urged me to make it official -within 48 hours I had a letter apologising and telling me about a further mistake I knew nothing about as the fraud dept had forgotten to cancel my card when I first called them to say there was an unauthorized foreign withdrawal on my account and only cancelled it when I rang to moan about more transactions going through. It seemed the branch couldn't tell me so their way of making sure I got to find out was to get me to complain as the complaints team can tell customers other departments have screwed up but the branches can't. Possibly your brother's situation is the same ? Just a thought.