NRAM Together Mortgage

sulaco2879

Hi,

First time on here and would like some advice.

In 2005 I got a house with my now wife and we took a Northern Rock Together Mortgage. We took out an extra 15000 on an unsecured loan. In the past we had some trouble with payments due to me receiving the news that I had the big C, which I have recovered from. After getting into trouble with the payments we spoke to NR and they agreed that they would help us out by adding any arrears to the back of the mortgage. We thought at the time that this was very kind of them and left it at that.

We are now in the process of moving to a new house as we have a baby on the way and need the extra room and have quite a bit of equity in our current property, so we thought we would be ok. Going through the process our solicitor has come across the fact that our unsecured load that was part of the together mortgage deal is now secured against our current home and we have been given loads of conflicting correspondence saying that it is still unsecured, but at the same time it is now secured. This is causing lots of issues and we are now having to look at clearing the remaining amount on the "unsecured" loan. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we got in arrears with out mortgage even though we have statements saying that we were in arrears with the secured part but not the "unsecured" part and was moving on.

We have just been contacted by my sister-in-law and have been told that they are in the same situation with their together mortgage mortgage they are looking to move and have been also told that they have their "unsecured" loan now secured against their home. Even though they have not missed any payments. So our above assumption of having arrears seems unwarranted.

My questions are:
Was this part of the NRAM move and if so why have I not got any correspondence to say they were doing this?
Is there anything we can do?

We have put in 2 complaints already with NRAM.
1 about the incorrect information we received when ringing up about paying the mortgage off and keeping the unsecured. Which we have received a compensation letter for £100 for time spent chasing this.
2 about why it has been secured without our knowledge.

Any help on this would be appreciated.

Regards,

Jon.

Thrugelmir

Were you not intending to settle the unsecured loan when you moved house?

sulaco2879

No as it was actually cheaper for us to mortgage with a 15% deposit and keep the unsecured than have a 10% and clear it.

silvercar

The only explanation for an unsecured loan actually being secured is when you have another loan that is secured from the same company. The terms and conditions of the secured loan can include that the security is given for any borrowing from that company,

So it could well be that the mortgage that is from NRAM has terms that secure any other borrowing ie the unsecured part of the Together mortgage.

Whether NRAM will act on this is something you need to find out. It used to be that the terms of the unsecured loan allowed for an increase in its interest rate should you clear the mortgage. So it may be that in return for releasing you from the unsecured loan being effectively secured, NRAM will bump up the interest rate on the unsecured loan.

antrobus

silvercar wrote: »

.... It used to be that the terms of the unsecured loan allowed for an increase in its interest rate should you clear the mortgage. So it may be that in return for releasing you from the unsecured loan being effectively secured, NRAM will bump up the interest rate on the unsecured loan.

I believe it remains the case. The unsecured loan becomes 'delinked'.

Please be aware that the interest rate on your delinked Together unsecured loan is charged at our standard variable rate plus an increase of 3%, 5% or 8%, depending on when you started your Together mortgage . Please refer to your original offer documentation for more information on the rate that applies to you.

http://www.n-ram.co.uk/loans/together-loans/delinked-loans

sulaco2879

agree with both of you about the delinked loan. This is also what we thought and was told by NRAM but they have since told us that it is secured and that they gave us the wrong information.

We have proof that we never fell behind on the unsecured loan and there was no reason to secure it against the home.

It seems that any information we are being given is murky at best.