Barclays Bank lack of information

vitalspark

Back in 2003 my wife and I wanted to purchase a property in France. Our mortgage is with Barclays Bank although it was with The Woolwich Building Society when we originally took it out and then it was transferred. The mortgage is a Tracker Mortgage that has all our personal account balance linked to it so all the balances are put against the capital sum borrowed to either reduce the monthly payment or the term. We were told that the mortgage had what is called a 'reserve' attached to it. This resave could be used for any purchase and the amount borrowed from this reserve would be linked to our mortgage. This suited us as it meant we would not have to worry about have two mortgages or two monthly payments. We appreciated the additional sum borrowed would increase our monthly payment. What was not explained was the link was only the interest on the amount borrowed from the reserve and not the full amount. Our monthly payment went up and we did not think any more about it. Then we started to realize something was amiss when the balance on the statement for the reserve was not reducing but the monthly payment on our mortgage was going up. We tried on a few occasions to get an interview with a Barclays Mortgage adviser to explain to us what was happening. We eventually got an interview but the adviser could not explain and had to refer us to someone else. This other person was supposed to contact us to arrange a meeting but nothing happened. We finally got another meeting with another mortgage adviser much later through us contacting Barclay’s mortgage advisers via another department. Prior to this meeting we tested a theory that something was amiss with our mortgage account by transferring a large amount from another account that was not one of the accounts linked to the mortgage to one that was. Low and behold was saw that the monthly payment did it not reduce it actually increased. I took a copy of the account statement with this mortgage payment on it to our meeting with the new adviser. I have to admit she was quite thorough. She actually identified that the savings account that had the largest balance (exaggerated by the recent transfer) was not on the tracker system for our mortgage. Then she found that we had changed our savings account from one product to another. My wife then remembered that on one visit to the bank quite recently after we had taken the option on the reserve, a teller had told her of a new savings account that would suit us better than the one we had and would she like to change our existing one to this new one. Obviously my wife said yes. Now this may seem naïve but she had only gone to the bank to pay money in not to discuss our savings accounts. The mortgage adviser is trying to rectify this particular problem at the moment. So now we have a situation where our mortgage has not been getting the benefit of all our savings balances. We were not advised properly that the reserve amount linked to our mortgage was only the interest and not the sum borrowed. During the time that the savings account was not linked the interest on our mortgage was too high due to the savings account not being linked therefore our monthly repayments have been higher than they should be.
This may seem a ramble but I find it hard to enplane something I am not experienced in. Can anyone help with what we should do next?

dunstonh

Can anyone help with what we should do next?

Wait until Barclays come to you with the outcome.

At the end of the day there may be little or no difference. Indeed, you could be financially better off if the newer savings account paid a better rate than the older one. i.e. old one offset 3% but new one paid you 4%

mrsw

I take it this is an offset arrangement? your mortgage advisor should be able to offset the new savings account and backdate the missing interest saving to the date the account was opened. They have done this for me before, and it was very easy to do. Good luck.

Eos

vitalspark wrote: »

We were told that the mortgage had what is called a 'reserve' attached to it. This reserve could be used for any purchase and the amount borrowed from this reserve would be linked to our mortgage. This suited us as it meant we would not have to worry about have two mortgages or two monthly payments.

Just making sure you realise, the "reserve account" increases your secured loan against your house and increases your monthly repayments each month, but will NOT be payed off unless you set up payments to the reserve itself.
ie, if you spend £10,000 in your reserve account. When you have finished paying your mortgage, you may still owe that entire £10,000.

smoorecats

Hi,
Re reserve account, we are in the process of remortgaging and today we have just been told that on our reserve account it is interest only (although we do pay slightly over) but neither of us remember being told this, we were just told to pay xyz (which is basically the minimum payment) and we chose to pay more, now it looks like we are going to be stuck with the reserve for a very long time as the extra we pay doesn't make hardly any difference and we can't afford to pay any extra!
Any advice would be greatly received.

Many thanks

minimike2

You should get the interest back from them no problem, but they are not obliged to make any kind of reduction to the reserve balance as its clear in thier documentation regarding the way repayments on it work.

Scousebird_2

When working for barclays I have seen this happen a few times-if a customer has an offest arrangement, for the love of god don't change the savings pot (eg-the reserve) as it completely messes up the arrangement (I am guessing they swapped you to a day to day savings account)!
If the adviser wasn't aware the arrangement was offest (and to be fair, if you're not mortgage trained-which I am not but I have a diverse experience of banking as a customer and as an adviser) then you wouldn't know. But if this has happened then something as simple as this has caused you all this trouble and training really should go in place so this doesn't happen to someone else as i'm sure it's caused you financial worry.
Hopefully it will all be resolved but in the meantime it's the impact it has had on yourselves
The adviser may of thought it was good customer service (as I doubt it would be for the sales, because you don't get anything for moving money from savings accounts to new savings accounts)-I think this was prob just a genuine error but hope you get sorted!