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

mac24

Look forward to hearing more from Pete Rod.

I have heard nothing from the ombudsman since I sent my grievance to them back in July!

peterod1

Sorry for the long delay.
As I said before I complained to the FOS in September after I was initally being knocked back by Santander. My situation was that I started a 10 year fixed mortgage at 5.7% in November 2006 which ran through to November 2016. I complained that I was denied the opportunity to move to a cheaper mortgage through not being told that I could move penalty free. Anyway at the very end of December 2016 I was contacted by the FOS and was told Santander had made an offer, This was the first contact with the FOS since sending my complaint. The outcome was they have offered the variance of the 5.7% that I was on against the best product available (a 1.89% above base rate tracker). This has been calculated from 3 Jan 2009 to 23 Dec 2016 in addition statutory interested of 8% has been added, also allowed to move to any new product penalty free and all applicable fees that would of been payable back in 2009 were waived in the calculation, if any were payable. To be honest I was expecting a fight but I was totally surprised when I received the call. There is hope yet for any still fighting.

mac24

peterod1 wrote: »

Sorry for the long delay.
As I said before I complained to the FOS in September after I was initally being knocked back by Santander. My situation was that I started a 10 year fixed mortgage at 5.7% in November 2006 which ran through to November 2016. I complained that I was denied the opportunity to move to a cheaper mortgage through not being told that I could move penalty free. Anyway at the very end of December 2016 I was contacted by the FOS and was told Santander had made an offer, This was the first contact with the FOS since sending my complaint. The outcome was they have offered the variance of the 5.7% that I was on against the best product available (a 1.89% above base rate tracker). This has been calculated from 3 Jan 2009 to 23 Dec 2016 in addition statutory interested of 8% has been added, also allowed to move to any new product penalty free and all applicable fees that would of been payable back in 2009 were waived in the calculation, if any were payable. To be honest I was expecting a fight but I was totally surprised when I received the call. There is hope yet for any still fighting.

Thanks PeteRod.

Did you actually get an admission that you were able to move at the time penalty free?

peterod1

Hi Mac24, nothing in writing from Santander but the FOS email stated

"Santander has agreed to put you in the position you would have been if you had been able to re-mortgage in January 2009, without an early repayment charge, to a cheapest comparative product in the UK suitable for your needs."

Not sure its an admission, buts thats all they said, the rest was the calculation.

Regards

mparter

Talk about late to the party. This is the first of me hearing of this. I don't recall ever receiving any correspondence from Santander.

I took out a 5 year fixed rate mortgage with Abbey in September 2005. I am still with Santander but plan to move house in a few months so will likely no longer be with them come the summer.

Am I likely to have been affected by this?
How do I find out if I was?
What redress are Santander likely to offer?

mac24

mparter wrote: »

Talk about late to the party. This is the first of me hearing of this. I don't recall ever receiving any correspondence from Santander.

I took out a 5 year fixed rate mortgage with Abbey in September 2005. I am still with Santander but plan to move house in a few months so will likely no longer be with them come the summer.

Am I likely to have been affected by this?
How do I find out if I was?
What redress are Santander likely to offer?

I would say at the very least you should have received a letter.

Whether you'd get compensation is a bit of a grey area.
I would say definitely ring Santander and explain your situation.

fleetingmind

peterod1 wrote: »

Sorry for the long delay.
As I said before I complained to the FOS in September after I was initally being knocked back by Santander. My situation was that I started a 10 year fixed mortgage at 5.7% in November 2006 which ran through to November 2016. I complained that I was denied the opportunity to move to a cheaper mortgage through not being told that I could move penalty free. Anyway at the very end of December 2016 I was contacted by the FOS and was told Santander had made an offer, This was the first contact with the FOS since sending my complaint. The outcome was they have offered the variance of the 5.7% that I was on against the best product available (a 1.89% above base rate tracker). This has been calculated from 3 Jan 2009 to 23 Dec 2016 in addition statutory interested of 8% has been added, also allowed to move to any new product penalty free and all applicable fees that would of been payable back in 2009 were waived in the calculation, if any were payable. To be honest I was expecting a fight but I was totally surprised when I received the call. There is hope yet for any still fighting.

Thank you for the update. Very interesting.

I was told by Santander that as I was on a fixed rate at the time it didn't affect me and when that expired and I went onto their SVR I could have left anytime. They still won't answer my question as to where in the T&C's the 30 days notice of the cap increase and chance to leave ERC free was not applicable to me on a fixed term mortgage. Plus when I went onto their SVR I was the under the assumption my SVR rate would be based on the cap margin rate agreed in our contract and not underhandedly changed without anyone knowing. If the customers broke he T&C's we'd soon be contacted by them strongly.

They won't take my complaint any further so I have had to write to the FOS. Still waiting to hear back from the CEO in regards to my above question/query.

DMKCAK

Dear All,
The Grey Area s whether or not some or all of your mortgage is, was or will be affected by the SVR. At some stage your mortgage either was or would have been affected by the SVR. This has caused Santander to make the offers of settlements as a gesture of good will.

Rest Assured FOS have not "negotiated" these offers of settlement on your behalf. They ran a test case and "provisionally" found in that individuals favour and that is when Santander agreed to start settling as a gesture of good will.

Regards
DMKCAK

toofy

Hi, I've just come back to revisit this thread, I had complained on behalf of my mother to Santander, and they did not uphold my complaint., and I'm now going to FOS. However on the letter they sent back there is a paragraph that may be of importance to others ..

"Firstly, I would like to explain that on 15 December 2008 we increased the Cap Margin from 2.5% to 3.75% due to the higher cost to us in raising the money which we lend to our customers. By making this change we were then able to increase the maximum amount of interest charged to customers paying an SVR linked rate. As a result of the increase customers that were affected were eligible to exit their mortgage Early Repayment Charge (ERC) free between 15 December 2008 and 15 March 2009"

The letter is from a Customer Resolution Officer and to me this is an official admission that there was indeed a 3 month window to leave. I will be happy to photocopy letter and forward to anyone who may want to use it for their own claim..
Hope this helps someone..

fleetingmind

Just wanted to update on my situation in case it may help others or to encourage people not to give up. Had my Abbey/Santander mortgage between March 2007 and November 2014 when I moved mortgage to Nationwide. I was on a fixed rate of 4.88% between March 2007 and February 2009. I was on a fixed rate mortgage when the cap margin increase occurred in 2008.
I filled out the questionnaire in August 2016 and had a lot of letters back and forth with Santander. Santander weren’t interested, didn’t answer key questions and didn’t think I was affected by the Cap Margin increase and in the end they advised that “our internal complaints process has been exhausted, and our final decision remains unchanged” then told to take it up with the FOS.

I then emailed the CEO (Nathan Bostock) in December 2016 and chased up again in early 2017. The content of my email was basically saying how they had refused to answer my main questions and while I appreciate the complaints process had been exhausted could they please show me in the SMC’s where it states that as a fixed rate customer at the time of the increase that they didn’t need to advise me of the cap increase (seeing as my mortgage would shortly go to a SVR) and also where it stated I wasn’t able to leave mortgage ERC free.

Then out of the blue on the 1st March 2017 I received a letter from their Executive Complaints department making me a offer based from the date my fixed rate ending (Feb 2009) to 2014 and using a First Direct Tracker Rate of 1.89% plus interest. I must admit I almost had a heart attack when I saw the amount as I was only expecting about £5k max but it was a lot higher. Not long before I received this letter I had taken my complaint to the FOS. They were very unhelpful and as others have said they are backing Santander as much as they can. They wanted me to take the offer straight away, was rude to me and kept insisting why didn’t I leave my mortgage when it went to the SVR. Missing the whole point of the argument. I had to be strong with FOS and asked Santander why they had not used other lower rates that were available at the time and when trying to find information online and trying to prove my houses LTV at the time it was very difficult which I think Santander know.

Partly due to ill health and also it having dragged on for so long I accepted their first offer.

Thank you to everyone’s help on here especially frazell who went above and beyond in their help to me.