Change of Ts & Cs without telling us.

GaryBC

We've had a Northern Rock mortgage for several years. One of the reasons we chose it was that it offered payment holidays - a feature we have found to be very useful.
As we need a new boiler we decided to get ourselves a payment holiday. It's always been very simple: a quick phone call to confirm a few details and voila - a holiday next month.
But not any more! NR have changed the Ts & Cs such that we can no longer take a payment holiday. And they've done it without telling us.
Now if we had taken an action in breach of the contractual Ts & Cs they'd no doubt have dropped on us like the proverbial ton of bricks. I shall, therefore, be writing to them to complain and to see what can be done.
My question of the community here is: what can I reasonably expect by way of remediation from them?

Thanks,
Gary

mrginge

What t + c have they changed?
Please post the offending item.

dunstonh

Payment holidays with lenders have rarely been a contractual right. It was something the lender could choose to offer or refuse as they saw fit.

Now if we had taken an action in breach of the contractual Ts & Cs they'd no doubt have dropped on us like the proverbial ton of bricks. I shall, therefore, be writing to them to complain and to see what can be done.

Can you tell us what it says in the existing T&C about payment holidays?

My question of the community here is: what can I reasonably expect by way of remediation from them?

Nothing as I suspect there is nothing in the T&C and even if there is, it will likely state it is subject to lender approval.

andyfromotley

Almost certain to also be a T&C that says in some fancy legal terminology,

'we can change these, willy nilly, as and when we feel like it, and theres diddly squat you can do about it'

(ha now that would be a proper 'plain english' contract!)

kingstreet

Presumably this is NRAM and not Virgin Money?

If it is, it is tasked with returning money to the taxpayer as quickly as possible, so it may be felt payment holidays would actually slow the process.

Thrugelmir

GaryBC wrote: »

We've had a Northern Rock mortgage for several years.

NR have changed the Ts & Cs such that we can no longer take a payment holiday.

NR has been closed for new business sine February 2008 when it was nationalised. So no change of terms and conditions. It simply has no capacity to offer new products.

GaryBC

Thrugelmir wrote: »

NR has been closed for new business sine February 2008 when it was nationalised. So no change of terms and conditions. It simply has no capacity to offer new products.

The lady on the phone this morning told me that they'd changed them last April - less than a year ago.

But from what I'm reading here I'll be wasting my time even complaining.

dunstonh

The lady on the phone this morning told me that they'd changed them last April - less than a year ago.

Did they change the T&C or did they decide to no longer do them? Features and options are not in the T&C and can be added/withdrawn/changed without breaking T&Cs.

GaryBC

dunstonh wrote: »

Did they change the T&C or did they decide to no longer do them? Features and options are not in the T&C and can be added/withdrawn/changed without breaking T&Cs.

All I know is that when I said what I was phoning for I was told I can't have it. What the actual nature of the change is - in legalese - I don't know. Fact is the reason we chose that product all those years ago has been taken away and, if it turns out there is nothing I can do about it, I'll be mighty p'ed off!

If I'd bought a car and, several years later a mechanic arrived to take 8% off the fuel consumption, I'd have him arrested! So how come it's ok for a bank to do it?

stator

Dig out the T&C. If it says something like "Completely at our discretion we may offer"..... then you don't have a leg to stand on.
If it says something more precise "If you have made 12 continous payments on time we will allow you to take 1 payment holidy" then you might have something to complain about.

kingstreet

This isn't a bank.

It's effectively a closed mortgage-book UK Government department, subject to no commercial pressure and with one imperative - to repay the taxpayer by reducing/closing as many accounts as it can, as quickly as it can.