MSE News: Thousands of Santander mortgage holders could get payouts after blunder

frazell

Right - an interesting response from Santander over the weekend.


They have agreed (again) that I would have changed my mortgage if I were advised of the cap margin increase and that the product that I would have picked is now the Woolwich +0.5% above base rate tracker which places my interest at about 1%.


So good news on that and importantly to everyone here, that means that this product must have been available at the time. Usefully they did not include a calculation, so cannot check how they arrived at the final figure, needless to say I'm about twice the original compensation level from where I started.


Bad news is that despite agreeing the above, they still wont change the dates of the calculation. My mortgage rolled onto the SVR in July 2010 and then was redeemed in July 2011 and so they are the dates they insist on using. Their argument is that those are the dates I was directly affected by the Cap Margin Increase.


It seems they have completely ignored my initial argument that I would have paid the ERC and exited the mortgage for a better rate in Nov 2008.


So, with a heavy heart, I'm going to go back to these fools again and highlight this in flashing neon lights and at the same time I'm going to the ombudsman.


I've wasted a fair amount of time trying to sort this out and we're now on complaint number 4. I'm also going to suggest some compensation for being completely messed around throughout this whole thing.


Good luck to all dealing with these utter snakes.

frazell

Seems I might be missing a trick here reading back through previous posts, other forum members are using Nov 2008 as the compensation start date, right through to present day, not the point where the mortgage was redeemed.

mac24

frazell wrote: »

Right - an interesting response from Santander over the weekend.


They have agreed (again) that I would have changed my mortgage if I were advised of the cap margin increase and that the product that I would have picked is now the Woolwich +0.5% above base rate tracker which places my interest at about 1%.


So good news on that and importantly to everyone here, that means that this product must have been available at the time. Usefully they did not include a calculation, so cannot check how they arrived at the final figure, needless to say I'm about twice the original compensation level from where I started.


Bad news is that despite agreeing the above, they still wont change the dates of the calculation. My mortgage rolled onto the SVR in July 2010 and then was redeemed in July 2011 and so they are the dates they insist on using. Their argument is that those are the dates I was directly affected by the Cap Margin Increase.


It seems they have completely ignored my initial argument that I would have paid the ERC and exited the mortgage for a better rate in Nov 2008.


So, with a heavy heart, I'm going to go back to these fools again and highlight this in flashing neon lights and at the same time I'm going to the ombudsman.


I've wasted a fair amount of time trying to sort this out and we're now on complaint number 4. I'm also going to suggest some compensation for being completely messed around throughout this whole thing.


Good luck to all dealing with these utter snakes.

Thanks Frazell. Have they specifically stated that you would have had to pay the ERC to leave? I'm going straight to the ombudsmen with my complaint.

frazell

Mac24, no they have not stated that I would have had to pay the ERC, but I know that the mortgage was inside the lower rate at the time and only rolled onto the SVR in 2010.

My suggestion to them is that I would have paid the ERC to exit for the better rate.

streaps20

Hi, on a slightly different note. I held a joint mortgage with Santander in 2007 and submitted my complaint to them regarding the cap margin in 2013. As expected, they declined my claim. Unfortunately I neglected to refer my case to the Ombudsman within 6 months and, as a consequence, Santander are now advising that they are no longer willing to reconsider my case.
Does anyone know if I have options here. I acknowledge that I should have referred the case at the time but, with Santander now admitting fault on other cases, shouldnt they be obliged to reconsider?. In addition, its a joint mortgage and my partner had no input into the original complaint, would it be possible for her to submit a new claim independently (on the basis that she was not involved in the original complaint).
Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.

mac24

fishing_mad wrote: »

Well, I received a response from Santander this morning.


My husband and I held various Santander mortgages from December 2006 until October 2014. Santander have decided that we would have been effected by the cap margin increase on 3 September 2014 to the date the mortgage was redeemed on 15 October 2014 (one month).


I am bewildered.

Have you got the ombudsmen involved yet?

frazell

What I'd like to see happen is the FoS to actually set the rate that Santander have to adhere to with dealing with these complaints. If Santander agree that you would have moved to an alternate product then whether its a fixed or variable rate then this should be the best available on the market at the time (2008).


As for the dates that Santander use, it should simply be from Nov 2008 at the point WHERE SANTANDER BROKE THE TERMS OF THEIR OWN CONTRACT (<feel mildly better for that) to March 2016 as that is the period that has disadvantaged us all.


Pushing on, they should then be compensating everyone for the stress and inconvenience of arguing all of the above, in my case several times.


Lastly, I think its only right (as they broke the terms < did I mention that?), that they return the original product fee.


I really do hope that the FoS stops what they are doing momentarily and form a consistent approach to these complaints. The opportunity to reopen complaints should be an option given Santanders blatant tactics to get out of what's owed and the wild variation of rates used to compensate past complaints.


As for my case...... waiting on the FoS now after complaint number four to Santander.

toofy

Hi, I fired a letter off to Santander regarding my situation a few weeks back, chased it up with a phone call as I hadn't heard a response. Received a phone call back to say that my letter was received and being dealt with by a manager. He said I didn't receive a letter as we were not liable to pay an ERC on our mortgage at the time in December 2008, and as far as Santander are concerned we are not eligible for any redress. We had been Abbey customers purchasing in October 2006 on a 2yr discounted mortgage then in October 2006, we had migrated onto a new fixed rate product with Santander. As far as I can remember there was no need to instruct a solicitor, as it all happened over the phone. I cannot recall ever getting a change to my mortgage conditions sent through in the post or any discussion that we could leave said mortgage at any time. If this had been the case we would have exited out of the fixed rate to a better product as rates began to fall. As the new fixed rate product was for 3 yrs as were paying through the nose all this time @ 5.49%. I feel we have been duped.

I have asked for Santander's response to be put in writing to me and have been informed I should receive it within 10 days... is there any point in formulating a complaint to the Ombudsman? Or am I wasting my time? Any advice appreciated..

mac24

toofy wrote: »

Hi, I fired a letter off to Santander regarding my situation a few weeks back, chased it up with a phone call as I hadn't heard a response. Received a phone call back to say that my letter was received and being dealt with by a manager. He said I didn't receive a letter as we were not liable to pay an ERC on our mortgage at the time in December 2008, and as far as Santander are concerned we are not eligible for any redress. We had been Abbey customers purchasing in October 2006 on a 2yr discounted mortgage then in October 2006, we had migrated onto a new fixed rate product with Santander. As far as I can remember there was no need to instruct a solicitor, as it all happened over the phone. I cannot recall ever getting a change to my mortgage conditions sent through in the post or any discussion that we could leave said mortgage at any time. If this had been the case we would have exited out of the fixed rate to a better product as rates began to fall. As the new fixed rate product was for 3 yrs as were paying through the nose all this time @ 5.49%. I feel we have been duped.

I have asked for Santander's response to be put in writing to me and have been informed I should receive it within 10 days... is there any point in formulating a complaint to the Ombudsman? Or am I wasting my time? Any advice appreciated..

They appear to be firing off different answers to different people to suit their selves. I'm awaiting a response from my survey sent earlier this week. I've got the ombudsmen on standby. They advised me to go through the Santander complaint process first.
Their stance now seems to be that they needed to give 3 months notice prior to you dropping onto the SVR from any fix rate. This differs from the t&c's I have that states we should have been told of any increase regardless of the timeframe our fixed rate was at.

mac24

Has anyone managed to find any Held/Upheld case decisions regarding this on the ombudsmen website?