reclaiming charges on mortgare account

bettyboop080404

I would love to hear from anyone who has any information or experience on reclaiming charges on a mortgage account the same as the recent bank charges. To me it seems obvious that if it is excessive or even unlawful for banks etc to charge on average £35 to send you a letter to inform you re bounced cheque, unpaid direct debits etc then surely it is the same when they charge you the same to tell you that your mortgage payment has been missed or for every letter informng you re mortgage arrears etc,so if that is the case is there any reason why we cant reclaim those charges. I recently contacted the financial ombudsmans office and the lady i spoke to there she hadnt actually come across this one but said she couldnt see why not as to her there was no difference either and to go ahead and try and then contact them for any assistance if necessary so i have contacted the halifax and requested all charges on my mortgage account in the last 6 six years for which they charged me the statutory £10 and i received that information today so i was just hoping someone out there could give me any advice or information before i proceed.

homer_j_3

have you thought about if they say that you are no longer accepting the terms and conditions and want you to close the mortgage down? Some banks do that with bank charges don't they?

I see no reason why it wouldn't be any different in theory but is it worth them giving you notice on your mortgage and charging you any closing charges they deem necessary - i presume they could do this?

bettyboop080404

thanks so much for your quick reply i hadnt considered this and am pleased you have brought it to my attention. I suppose they could be that petty over sevral hundred quid - thing is if they could repay me this i could pay off my mortgage arrears - i wonder which they would prefer ?? It is all certainly something to think about, thank you

dunstonh

Mortage arrear charges are generally processed as a service charge and not a penalty charge. A charge for a service is not unlawful in the way an excessive penalty charge is. You can certainly try and may be successful but you may have noticed that you dont see the posts in here from people saying they have done it and been successful. That may give you a clue to your chances of success.

bettyboop080404

But surely when they are sending me a letter and charging me £35 for sending that letter that is still a penalty charge ( an excessive one at that) not a service charge - i would still like to hear other peoples opinions on this please

UK007BullDog

No chance and the risks have been explained to you.

If it happened just once that the payment was missed they might be kind and waiver the fee if nicely asked. If it happened multiple times you are asking the lender to fund your lifestyle free of charge and that will not happen.

The lender borrows the money from the open market (swaps etc.) or from other lenders and also has to pay interest on it. The lender takes peoples savings and the people expect to get paid interest on it. So the lender needs your monthly mortgage payment to cover all that. If the borrowers do not pay, like its happening in the USA, the banks go bankrupt. And you definately do not want your mortgage to be with a bankrupt lender.

dunstonh

bettyboop080404 wrote: »

But surely when they are sending me a letter and charging me £35 for sending that letter that is still a penalty charge ( an excessive one at that) not a service charge - i would still like to hear other peoples opinions on this please

Its a fine line between penalty and service charge but a change of wording suddenly gives it a different meaning. Service charges are not unlawful. Penalty charges are believed to be.

Tootsie_Roll

Well I agree with all the comments already made and as some of you will know I am totally opposed to anyone reclaiming charges and firmly believe that a penalty is needed to prevent people repeating the same mistake over and over again. However I am now about to put the cat amongst the pigeons and totally contradict a post I made a while ago without thinking it through !!

I used to manage the mortgage collections department for one of the major UK lenders - each one of my collectors (I had 97) were allocated a case load of 500 cases; assuming that a letter is sent out each month for each case (not quite the case but many might receive 2 each month whilst some on arrangement wont get any) that equals £17,500 each month per collector. We didn't work on any sort of commission or bonus and the average salary was around £18k (7 years ago) so the charges raised are certainly not proprtionate to the actual cost in exactly the same way as bank charges.

I still think they are valid though. To the OP; if this is your first one ask nicely and they will probably refund it - go in with all guns blazing and they will make you work for it.

bettyboop080404

I would just like to say thank you for this very very interesting insight - especially as you say you are opposed to reclaiming charges - doesnt this just show to everyone out there the sort of money these banks and building societies are making purley on sending out letters to inform people something they already obviously know - it certainly puts a whole new light and perspective on it for me thank you very much again Tootsie for this valuable information:T

bettyboop080404

UK007Bulldog How on earth am i asking the mortgage company to fund my lifestyle i am not asking them to pay my mortgage i am merely asking them not to charge me £35 to send me a letter to inform me of something a obviously already know and therefore asking them to refund me for the times they have already done this for a letter that must cost them ??pence to actually send. Does the information now placed on here by Tootsie not shed a different light on this for you - doubt very much whilst making these sort of profits alone on letters and postage they are about to go bankrupt

borgbaiter

hi all

i see no difference between mortgage penalties and bank penalties. unfair contract terms are just that. i will be reviewing my charges and probably try recaliming them two. its not easy to get out of a downward spiral with the bank taking your money from one sie and the mortgage company joining the feeding frenzy from the other end. no letter ever written is worth £35-00 !!!
:mad:

borgbaiter