Are they allowed to do this?

Aeonix

My husband and I have a joint account with Natwest, as well as a loan. We have ended up in our overdraft, and a couple of times have been unable to meet the repayment of the loan, which we explained this to Natwest, well ahead of time, who did not care in the slightest. It's a long story, but basically Natwest now know and have known we have rather unique circumstances, but are still unwilling to refinance, and in fact the one time they said we could make lower payments they demanded two payments in one month!!

We've been in contact with them numerous times asking to lower the payments, and they keep running us in circles promising all sorts of things then never following through.

However, when we are behind on our payments, they go into our account without our authorization and take the payment for the loan. We cancelled the DD that was set up with the bank, but that hasn't stopped them, and they have twice now stopped payment on our rent to cover the cost of the arrears to the loan, but the first time, the rent and the arrears both being paid would NOT have caused us to go over our agreed overdraft!!!

We are now going to be in a position where we may not have a place to live if Natwest continue to play these games with our money...they also sent a letter stating they were starting default procedures, then take the arrears?! They had better stop the default procedures then!!

What I'm trying to get at is, are they allowed to take the money out of our account without our authorization, and are they also allowed to interfere with our DD being paid, because they would have had to hve stopped the rent payment in order to pay the arrears (I was told by a Natwest employee themselves to switch the date of the rent being paid to the same day dh gets paid so it would get paid before the bank would take their payment, so obviously they have to know ahead of time to stop the payment before its gone out).

DanDan123

Yes they can! Check your terms and conditions!

KTF

Is the loan also with Natwest? If so then they can get the money from your current account even if you stop the DD.

DanDan123

I think its called the "right to Offset"

Millionaire

Thats why you should have more than one account.

You need to open another account with a different bank and pay all your income in there.

then just set up a standing order or do a manual transfers, even cash into Natwest whenever required.

they cant touch your money then.

In the long run your gonna have to sort your finances out otherwise its gonna become defaults and mess up your credit rating.

Aeonix

Thanks...I figured as much, as for the T&Cs...this account is years old, my husbands from long long before I came along, and I was told natwest was the best bank around, so just went with it...now obviously I can see the error of our ways (I'm not from this country, hence my not knowing anything about natwest full stop).

We have a second account, which I had been suggesting dh's income go into awhile back, it's just now being sorted out but wasn't in time to get the latest pay in the right one

Just could not have come at a worse time, we will likely be fine with the rent, as we are expecting a lump sum any day now into the second account, but we needed that for other important matters.