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Issue with unfavourable changes to mortgage after bank migration to a new system
BooJewels
Posts: 3,006 Forumite
I'm wondering if anyone has experienced a similar problem and been able to resolve it without resorting to expensive lawyers etc. I do have an appointment booked for a face to face next week with the bank mortgage adviser who I think may have had a hand in this (and I sincerely hope she can find the problem and fix it), but she's been on holiday and I've consequently been left a little high and dry until her return as the bank are adamant after an enquiry that everything is correct - and that I'm wrong.
We took out a second endowment mortgage in 1988 which is due to mature this week. I've sorted the policy maturity with the assurance company and the money is en route to my bank account. But the bank were supposed to process that as it was an assigned policy, but after a lot of back and forth and time on the phone, it became evident that there was a problem with that process and the bank weren't going to make the claim after all (despite writing in January to say that they would be doing) - purely because they now believe there is still over 7 years to run on the mortgage.
As the endowment was going to mature with a small shortfall, we visited the bank in January and made changes to our mortgage to put the shortfall onto a repayment basis, consolidate a number of other loans and borrow a little more to fix a building problem and do some improvements. Our remaining borrowing was consolidated to 8 years term - some had longer to run, some less, so we split the difference. This time is clearly what has become imported onto the interest only part we thought was concluding this month.
I have had extensive discussion with the mortgage adviser at the time in January and more recently and she is clearly of the same understanding as myself that the interest only aspect will mature this month - she was trying to ascertain why they hadn't written to claim it immediately before she went away, but more problems have arisen in her absence.
At the end of January, the 'end of term team' wrote confirming it too, explaining that I didn't need to do anything, they would claim the funds and finalise the mortgage. They wrote again after a few days saying that they had checked the endowment and it was in order, but we should make arrangements for the expected shortfall. As we'd already done that we didn't do anything further.
The bank 'migrated' onto a new system in March, generating me a new mortgage account number and I now can see details of the 5 sub accounts for the various aspects of my borrowing, of which 3 seem to be totally messed up; 2 seem to be correct. I've spent a lot of time on the phone trying to get this sorted and they've put a 'top manager' in a 'back room team' onto an investigation of it for me and after a week or more on the task, he determined that everything was correct and I'm simply wrong.
They claim that I put the interest only endowment on a fixed interest rate and extended it by 10 years in 2008 and again amended it in January this year, further extending it to 8 years. Why on earth would anyone add several years to a fixed term interest only mortgage and even if I asked them to do it, how could the bank even allow it? There was no benefit whatsoever to me to do so and a lot of profit in it for them if I had.
I do have considerable evidence since that date that I did no such thing. The confirmation letter for the further borrowing in 2008 clearly states that the amount of that mortgage remains outstanding, at the standard variable rate with 4 years 9 months remaining. My regular interest rate change letters in the intervening years show that it was clearly not on a fixed interest rate either and the letters in January indicate that at that time, they were expecting it to mature/end this month, so something in the intervening weeks has clearly gone awry.
At present, the mortgage department are adamant that nothing is amiss and consequently, they won't let me pay off the capital without massive early repayment charges or paying a further 91 interest payments.
Has anyone else had similar issues with bank migration processes and successfully had them rectified? I have wasted a considerable amount of time working on this and not only do I want a speedy and accurate resolution, but I'd like an apology at least (I don't appreciate being called a liar by bank staff) and my husband is baying for compensation too. He feels sure that the bank will apply pressure to the branch adviser we are seeing to not make changes. I'm hoping that she simply did something wrong in setting up the changes in January and can reverse / rectify them.
I'd appreciate any guidance or ideas and apologise that it ended up so lengthy.
We took out a second endowment mortgage in 1988 which is due to mature this week. I've sorted the policy maturity with the assurance company and the money is en route to my bank account. But the bank were supposed to process that as it was an assigned policy, but after a lot of back and forth and time on the phone, it became evident that there was a problem with that process and the bank weren't going to make the claim after all (despite writing in January to say that they would be doing) - purely because they now believe there is still over 7 years to run on the mortgage.
As the endowment was going to mature with a small shortfall, we visited the bank in January and made changes to our mortgage to put the shortfall onto a repayment basis, consolidate a number of other loans and borrow a little more to fix a building problem and do some improvements. Our remaining borrowing was consolidated to 8 years term - some had longer to run, some less, so we split the difference. This time is clearly what has become imported onto the interest only part we thought was concluding this month.
I have had extensive discussion with the mortgage adviser at the time in January and more recently and she is clearly of the same understanding as myself that the interest only aspect will mature this month - she was trying to ascertain why they hadn't written to claim it immediately before she went away, but more problems have arisen in her absence.
At the end of January, the 'end of term team' wrote confirming it too, explaining that I didn't need to do anything, they would claim the funds and finalise the mortgage. They wrote again after a few days saying that they had checked the endowment and it was in order, but we should make arrangements for the expected shortfall. As we'd already done that we didn't do anything further.
The bank 'migrated' onto a new system in March, generating me a new mortgage account number and I now can see details of the 5 sub accounts for the various aspects of my borrowing, of which 3 seem to be totally messed up; 2 seem to be correct. I've spent a lot of time on the phone trying to get this sorted and they've put a 'top manager' in a 'back room team' onto an investigation of it for me and after a week or more on the task, he determined that everything was correct and I'm simply wrong.
They claim that I put the interest only endowment on a fixed interest rate and extended it by 10 years in 2008 and again amended it in January this year, further extending it to 8 years. Why on earth would anyone add several years to a fixed term interest only mortgage and even if I asked them to do it, how could the bank even allow it? There was no benefit whatsoever to me to do so and a lot of profit in it for them if I had.
I do have considerable evidence since that date that I did no such thing. The confirmation letter for the further borrowing in 2008 clearly states that the amount of that mortgage remains outstanding, at the standard variable rate with 4 years 9 months remaining. My regular interest rate change letters in the intervening years show that it was clearly not on a fixed interest rate either and the letters in January indicate that at that time, they were expecting it to mature/end this month, so something in the intervening weeks has clearly gone awry.
At present, the mortgage department are adamant that nothing is amiss and consequently, they won't let me pay off the capital without massive early repayment charges or paying a further 91 interest payments.
Has anyone else had similar issues with bank migration processes and successfully had them rectified? I have wasted a considerable amount of time working on this and not only do I want a speedy and accurate resolution, but I'd like an apology at least (I don't appreciate being called a liar by bank staff) and my husband is baying for compensation too. He feels sure that the bank will apply pressure to the branch adviser we are seeing to not make changes. I'm hoping that she simply did something wrong in setting up the changes in January and can reverse / rectify them.
I'd appreciate any guidance or ideas and apologise that it ended up so lengthy.
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Comments
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At present, the mortgage department are adamant that nothing is amiss and consequently, they won't let me pay off the capital without massive early repayment charges or paying a further 91 interest payments.
Unless you've opted for a fixed term product over 10 years then it's had to determine why such a charge would arise.0 -
That's rather the point. I haven't opted for anything on that particular pocket of borrowing. It has run, unadulterated and without a missed payment, for 25 years.Thrugelmir wrote: »Unless you've opted for a fixed term product over 10 years then it's had to determine why such a charge would arise.
I was contracted to pay interest for 25 years at the standard variable rate and at the end of term to pay off the capital as a lump sum - facilitated by my [somewhat under-performing] endowment policy.
My policy has matured, I think I paid my last interest payment on 30th June, I will have the remaining capital funds in a few days and want to re-pay what I owe.
But somewhere between making alterations to other aspects of my mortgage and the bank's migration to a new mortgage system (a total period of around 5 weeks), 8 years have been added (in January) to the term of this particular mortgage. Which, according to the bank, now has 91 remaining months to run. So if I repay the capital now, I'll be stung with early repayment charges and they were saying something about me only being able to pay a percentage each year anyway, not the total, plus the remaining 91 months of interest.
One way and another, if I can't get it sorted out, is going to cost me many thousands of pounds.0 -
I do have considerable evidence since that date that I did no such thing. The confirmation letter for the further borrowing in 2008 clearly states that the amount of that mortgage remains outstanding, at the standard variable rate with 4 years 9 months remaining. My regular interest rate change letters in the intervening years show that it was clearly not on a fixed interest rate either and the letters in January indicate that at that time, they were expecting it to mature/end this month, so something in the intervening weeks has clearly gone awry.
I cannot understand why the lender will not accept the evidence of the above documentation. Conversely, as this episode took place in 2008 the lender would have to provide a Key Facts Illustration (KFI), revised offer of mortgage and your acceptance. I suggest you request copies.0 -
Unfortunately, as detailed in my OP, the branch mortgage adviser has been on holiday, so I was left trying to sort it out over the phone. Naively thinking that it was a trivial error that there would be enough evidence within the system (i.e. their copies of the same docs I have) to support, I asked for it to be investigated and actually expected a call back saying they'd found the problem and fixed it - bearing in mind that I have a 30 year record with them and all the evidence and documentation that generates.Let_Us_See wrote: »I cannot understand why the lender will not accept the evidence of the above documentation. Conversely, as this episode took place in 2008 the lender would have to provide a Key Facts Illustration (KFI), revised offer of mortgage and your acceptance. I suggest you request copies.
I believe the incident actually took place earlier this year (my 2008-2012 docs were all correct) somewhere between changing the mortgage at the end of January and the bank migration early March.
Having carried out a 'thorough investigation' they came back and surprisingly told me that they found no error and I was mistaken and there was 7 years 7 months still to run on this mortgage.
So I do have an appointment with a real person early next week when she's back from her hols and I do have all of my documentation to support my argument - I do have the Key Facts doc (and offer letter) you referenced (from 2008, which clearly states the remaining term of this endowment mortgage and the interest rate) as well as a whole pile of other sundries (annual statements, interest rate change letters etc.) and calculations to prove my point. I don't see how they can argue to the contrary, but after a supposedly senior investigative manager didn't find a problem and about 4 hours on the phone to them, it did rather dent my confidence in getting it fixed and you do start to doubt your own sanity.
There are problems with the two remaining sub accounts too - each should have about the same balance with slightly different fixed interest rates. But one has 133% of the balance it should and the other has about 60% of the balance it should.
My parting words on the phone were that I knew I could prove that I was right, can they? 10 days on, the proof and explanation notes they were sending me haven't yet appeared.0 -
In that case it appears you have a very good case, although I would not put too much faith in a local adviser's ability to assist.
PS. Is the lender Woolwich/Barclays?0 -
In all fairness, the local adviser was pretty impressive when we saw her (and very patient at explaining things in simple terms to us that we couldn't grasp - something her jargon-and-acronym-happy colleague on the phone could learn from) and I've spoken to her several times since - certainly the best in a long career of dealing with them - the one in 2008 was hopeless and got several things wrong - but we put that down to her getting married a few days after we saw her - it was evident that her thoughts were elsewhere.Let_Us_See wrote: »In that case it appears you have a very good case, although I would not put too much faith in a local adviser's ability to assist.
PS. Is the lender Woolwich/Barclays?
Although I do have nagging suspicion that the problem maybe stems from something this lass did when she made the changes in January as the accounts with issues are all dated as commencing on 1st Feb - although it didn't come to light until after the system change. But I've chosen to wait and see her and not her holiday stand-in as I'm sure she'll grasp the details quite quickly and she's always done everything she's promised to date - so I have to give her the benefit of the opportunity to make it right.
No, it's not the bank you mentioned.0 -
You are allowed to say.No, it's not the bank you mentioned.0 -
I realise that, but as they currently have us by the financial doodahs and forum posts appear in Google, I just prefer a little discretion for now.opinions4u wrote: »You are allowed to say.0 -
20p on Halifax - whole IT system in meltdown over last few monthsHi, we’ve had to remove your signature. If you’re not sure why please read the forum rules or email the forum team if you’re still unsure - MSE ForumTeam0
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What have your annual mortgage statements said these past few years.0
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