mortgage booking fees for a mortgage never been used

tt15 · 26 January 2015 at 1:30PM

dear everyone, I have one question about whether I could claim back a mortgage booking fees and admin fees around £500 for a mortgage that we never used. back in 2004, we planned to buy a house and booked a mortgage with hsbc, just before we exchange contracts and do the transaction, the seller pulled out and we were informed by our solicitor. we were heart broken with all plans to move being destroyed and it took about one month to know what happened, the seller was being bankrupted. anyway, we lost money on solicitor fees, search fees, and mortgage booking fees. we didn't buy a new house with that mortgage as we were feeling so down with what happened. both us and our solicitor informed the bank that transaction was not happened. but the bank never refund that booking fees and admin fees without us really borrowing money from them. I think it's unfair because we didn't actually borrow money from them. i would be very grateful if you could share your opinion on this. is that money non refundable? in my eyes, if I don't borrow money from them, they shouldn't keep my booking fees. many thanks.