Product Switch - Lender charged us SVR in error

TheJP

Hi all, wondering if i could get some feedback/experience on this.

We re-mortgaged in February with a product switch with current lender, all paperwork, valuation etc completed and the new product was to start 1st March. However we were charged the SVR on the 1st March resulting in a mortgage payment that was £550 more than it should have been making our joint account overdrawn with further bills needing to be paid and incurring interest on the overdrawn amount.

I contacted my lender and they have admitted the switch was overlooked and will refund the amount they took in error. The thing is, we were on holiday from the 28th February until today (3rd March), this happened on our 2nd day of a 5 day holiday and added a lot of stress at the time as we didn't know what was going on. We were in a remote holiday village so contacting the lender at the time was difficult and i was in a phone queue for over an hour and gave up. As our account was heavily overdrawn, knowing more bills were to come out and the need to buy food for the month we ended up cancelling activities and meals out during our holiday in case we needed to fill a shortfall.

I mentioned on the phone the circumstances as above and asked about compensation which the lender said would need to be in the form of a complaint along with a figure. Has anyone had similar experiences of this? What sort of figure would be reasonable/justifiyable compensation?

My initial thoughts our reimbursement of;

• cost of the holiday
• fuel
• overdrawn overdraft interest and charges
• interest on the amount they took in error via the BOE rate
• phone costs calling their service
• compensation for stress and inconvenience 

ACG

I think you are being unrealistic. 
No harm asking for it, but your not going to get the cost of a holiday back. 

TheJP

ACG said:

I think you are being unrealistic. 
No harm asking for it, but your not going to get the cost of a holiday back. 

Why not? Their error heavily impacted our holiday. We couldn't do the majority of things we had planned because of this. 

housebuyer143

TheJP said:

ACG said:

I think you are being unrealistic. 
No harm asking for it, but your not going to get the cost of a holiday back. 

Why not? Their error heavily impacted our holiday. We couldn't do the majority of things we had planned because of this. 

It's not the lenders fault that you went in this holiday and didn't have any reserves so that a £500 error meant you would be struggling to eat etc. 
It's unfortunate but it's not reasonable to expect that. Everything else I think you should try for but you will probably get a few hundred max I would say.

TheJP

housebuyer143 said:

TheJP said:

ACG said:

I think you are being unrealistic. 
No harm asking for it, but your not going to get the cost of a holiday back. 

Why not? Their error heavily impacted our holiday. We couldn't do the majority of things we had planned because of this. 

It's not the lenders fault that you went in this holiday and didn't have any reserves so that a £500 error meant you would be struggling to eat etc. 
It's unfortunate but it's not reasonable to expect that. Everything else I think you should try for but you will probably get a few hundred max I would say.

We do have reserves, we chose to be frugal and not spend what we planned as we may need to cover that cost along with the bills and food. However that's not the issue, it doesn't matter if i was on holiday and didn't have reserves, Its the lenders fault for the error which then caused distress and inconvenience. 

Looking at case studies on the financial ombudsman website a lot more has been paid out for things that were a lot less in terms of error.

housebuyer143

TheJP said:

housebuyer143 said:

TheJP said:

ACG said:

I think you are being unrealistic. 
No harm asking for it, but your not going to get the cost of a holiday back. 

Why not? Their error heavily impacted our holiday. We couldn't do the majority of things we had planned because of this. 

It's not the lenders fault that you went in this holiday and didn't have any reserves so that a £500 error meant you would be struggling to eat etc. 
It's unfortunate but it's not reasonable to expect that. Everything else I think you should try for but you will probably get a few hundred max I would say.

We do have reserves, we chose to be frugal and not spend what we planned as we may need to cover that cost along with the bills and food. However that's not the issue, it doesn't matter if i was on holiday and didn't have reserves, Its the lenders fault for the error which then caused distress and inconvenience. 

Looking at case studies on the financial ombudsman website a lot more has been paid out for things that were a lot less in terms of error.

If you know so well what you should be getting and don't like the replies that disagree with your opinion, then why ask on here? Just put in your claim and ask for £4000 and see what you get.

TheJP

housebuyer143 said:

TheJP said:

housebuyer143 said:

TheJP said:

ACG said:

I think you are being unrealistic. 
No harm asking for it, but your not going to get the cost of a holiday back. 

Why not? Their error heavily impacted our holiday. We couldn't do the majority of things we had planned because of this. 

It's not the lenders fault that you went in this holiday and didn't have any reserves so that a £500 error meant you would be struggling to eat etc. 
It's unfortunate but it's not reasonable to expect that. Everything else I think you should try for but you will probably get a few hundred max I would say.

We do have reserves, we chose to be frugal and not spend what we planned as we may need to cover that cost along with the bills and food. However that's not the issue, it doesn't matter if i was on holiday and didn't have reserves, Its the lenders fault for the error which then caused distress and inconvenience. 

Looking at case studies on the financial ombudsman website a lot more has been paid out for things that were a lot less in terms of error.

If you know so well what you should be getting and don't like the replies that disagree with your opinion, then why ask on here? Just put in your claim and ask for £4000 and see what you get.

I'm asking if anyone has any experience in this situation. Saying its not the banks fault they didn't know i was on holiday isn't helpful is it. I guarantee if your holiday was affected by a banks error you would be doing the same.

Edi81

You aren’t going to get the cost of the holiday back! Jeez! Compensation culture!

MWT

TheJP said:

Saying its not the banks fault they didn't know i was on holiday isn't helpful is it. I guarantee if your holiday was affected by a banks error you would be doing the same.

I am certain you are wrong on your second point as I, and I'm sure many others here, wouldn't be expecting compensation for consequential losses which were not reasonably foreseeable by your lender, which is why although it may not be helpful to say that the bank didn't know you were on holiday, it is relevant...

These three are a reasonably ask...

• overdrawn overdraft interest and charges
• interest on the amount they took in error via the BOE rate
• phone costs calling their service

Compensation for stress and inconvenience is likely to just be a small amount as a token gesture for the error.

Do let us know how it goes...

TheJP

MWT said:

TheJP said:

Saying its not the banks fault they didn't know i was on holiday isn't helpful is it. I guarantee if your holiday was affected by a banks error you would be doing the same.

I am certain you are wrong on your second point as I, and I'm sure many others here, wouldn't be expecting compensation for consequential losses which were not reasonably foreseeable by your lender, which is why although it may not be helpful to say that the bank didn't know you were on holiday, it is relevant...

These three are a reasonably ask...

• overdrawn overdraft interest and charges
• interest on the amount they took in error via the BOE rate
• phone costs calling their service

Compensation for stress and inconvenience is likely to just be a small amount as a token gesture for the error.

Do let us know how it goes...

Thanks for your post- and your input.

Regarding the comment on consequential loss, yes the lender could not have known i was on holiday at this time however they breached the contract by not putting me on the new product when they should have. The paperwork was done on time and they confirmed that it was sorted but someone didn't do it on their end, breach of contract between me and the lender. Consequential loss would be if what happened was out of the lenders hands, this however was failure to switch my mortgage before the DD. 

MWT

TheJP said:

Consequential loss would be if what happened was out of the lenders hands, this however was failure to switch my mortgage before the DD. 

This definition may help...

https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/7-202-1808?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)

You are due to be made whole in respect of the direct and reasonably foreseeable consequences of their failure, but you are not likely to get much out of them for the consequential losses relating to your holiday...