help! - endownment not activated by mortgage provider 16 years ago

dunstonh

may as well try and claim the shares as well that he missed out on by not having the endowment

EdInvestor

IMHO you guys are being too mean and cynical to the OP.

It's by no means unusual for BSs to c*ck up mortgage arrangments to their customers' detriment.

Take the case of Abbey. Fifteen years ago, rather than put up people's mortgage repayments when interest rates rose, they simply extended the mortgage term.But they didn't bother to tell the affected customers - and nor did they sort out the situation when rates came down.

Result: thousands of people thought they were paying off their mortgages as originally planned, and suddenly discover ( possibly as they are due to retire) that they have to keep paying for another 10 or 15 years.

Sheer incompetence

:mad:

Why should such customers suffer?

JoeK_3

EdInvestor wrote: »

IMHO you guys are being too mean and cynical to the OP.

It's by no means unusual for BSs to c*ck up mortgage arrangments to their customers' detriment.

Take the case of Abbey. Fifteen years ago, rather than put up people's mortgage repayments when interest rates rose, they simply extended the mortgage term.But they didn't bother to tell the affected customers - and nor did they sort out the situation when rates came down.

Result: thousands of people thought they were paying off their mortgages as originally planned, and suddenly discover ( possibly as they are due to retire) that they have to keep paying for another 10 or 15 years.

Sheer incompetence

:mad:

Why should such customers suffer?

Good point and I agree.

This brings in a nice balance of opinion to the thread.

JoeK

defender_of_the_weak

Read the whole article in the link from dunston. Obviously this circumstance is not unkwown hence the Ombudsman briefing note. We have handled a few of these cases and much depends on the documentation at the time. If the Halifax have admitted the error in writing the complaint should go to them.
Make sure that it is formally lodged with halifax, and Standard life and refer to both parties when referring to fos

sciencegeek

Im sure its little consolation but at least this has occured on a house you bought 16 yrs ago ie early 90s. I would hazard a guess that the price you paid is tiny compared to the 'value' of the property now. I appreciate that if you thought you would end up owning the property outright after 25 yrs that is what you should get but at least if it all goes pear shaped with your claim you wont end up homeless as you will have made a huge capital gain.

seatzie

Interestingly enough this happened to my work colleague as well, also Halifax, he realised last year that 10 years down the line no endowment had ever been in place.............no help at all to the OP I suppose

Crazy_Saver

sciencegeek wrote: »

Im sure its little consolation but at least this has occured on a house you bought 16 yrs ago ie early 90s. I would hazard a guess that the price you paid is tiny compared to the 'value' of the property now. I appreciate that if you thought you would end up owning the property outright after 25 yrs that is what you should get but at least if it all goes pear shaped with your claim you wont end up homeless as you will have made a huge capital gain.

I appreciate you are not trying to offend sciencegeek, but this is one of the quotes that appears very often on these threads.

I know a lot of people look at their properties more as an investment item, but a few, like my husband and I look at our house purely as the family home.

We are facing a ridiculous shortfall in our endowment and Yes our property is worth 4 times more than when we purchased it in 1991. Yes, if we sold it we could very easily pay off the mortgage and swallow the shortfall.When we bought our house, we bought it because we love the area and the fantastic views accross unspoilt countryside. My children adore the place and have asked that we never move.

Therefore, we have extended our mortgage term which takes virtually into retirement. but what else can we do?

We don't want to move!

Does that sound naive, or do other posters feel the same.

regards

Crazy saver

EdInvestor

The other thing you can do is convert the mortgage into an equity release one, which will mean you no longer make any payments on the mortgage.
This is not a very good deal compared with downsizing but it is a way out for people who get caught with mortgages in retirement for one reason or another.

eadie_2

EdInvestor wrote: »

Have you looked at converting the mortgage to repayment? How much higher will the premiums be to pay it back over the 9 remaining years?

What does it look like if the new mortgage term is extended to 15 years?

In the early years, people pay mainly interest back on their mortgage: they don't start to reduce the capital owed for quite a few years, and most of the loan is actually repaid in the final 10 years of the mortgage term, particularly if interest rates are high, as they were 16 years ago.

So the situation may not be as bad as you might imagine, particularly given the poor performance of many endowments in recent years.

Yes we have today. It doesnt look as bad as we first thought (it does almost double the monthly payments however initial payment was pretty low; still dads personal circumstances mean it would be a signifcant impact on him) so very relieved there, lets just say theres many people out there in worse situations.

eadie_2

defender_of_the_weak wrote: »

Read the whole article in the link from dunston. Obviously this circumstance is not unkwown hence the Ombudsman briefing note. We have handled a few of these cases and much depends on the documentation at the time. If the Halifax have admitted the error in writing the complaint should go to them.
Make sure that it is formally lodged with halifax, and Standard life and refer to both parties when referring to fos

seatzie wrote:

Interestingly enough this happened to my work colleague as well, also Halifax, he realised last year that 10 years down the line no endowment had ever been in place.............no help at all to the OP I suppose

What were the outcomes here guys?

thanks