Anyone Had Dealing With Mortgages PLC

[dashngail]

Just wondered if anyone had any experience with Mortgages PLC

 

We sent our preliminary letter, then the second letter. We got an immediate response to the second one

 

All it said was we should have read our orginal contract and it included a copy of their complaints procedure, load of rubbish really.

 

Here's a copy of the letter we sent yesterday in response, as you call see we have still stuck with our orginal date for court action

 

Anyone got any comments

 

Thanks

Dashngail

ACCOUNT NUMBER:

Thank you for your letter dated 14th July 2006, we have read its contents thoroughly.

We have only recently been made aware of the legal precedent and recommendations to financial institutions by the Office of Fair Trading, which we detailed in our previous letters and which we once more quote:

“A term in a mortgage agreement which requires the borrower to pay more for breaching the contract terms than actual costs and losses caused to the lender by the breach (or a genuine pre-estimate of that) is likely to be regarded as an unfair penalty and to be unenforceable both at common law and (in a consumer mortgage) under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations. A redemption charge may be regarded as a penalty even if it is expressed as the price for exercising a right rather than a consequence of breaking the agreement”.

This information relates specifically to unfairly disproportionate charges and fees levied by banks and financial institutions in relation to its customers. Furthermore these recommendations allow for retroactive claims for charges made within the last six years. Had we been aware of this at the time the mortgage was redeemed, then the charge would have been contested.

In this particular instance we feel the redemption charge levied against our account for the completion of the mortgage, does not accurately reflect the actual cost of work involved to redeem this contract, nor, as you letter implies, the administration of the account. You will note from the completion statement with which you have kindly furnished us, that an amount of £134.00 was also levied on our account for ‘Redemption Administration Charge’, you will kindly note that we not attempting to contest this charge and feel this is fair and justified.

We would like to correct your assumption that this mortgage was redeemed in order that we could benefit from a more favourable rate of interest with another lender, in actual fact this was done for entirely different reasons and we are in fact paying more per month to our current lender. Although this has little or no bearing on the matter under discussion, we feel it is important to make this correction.

We accept your statement regarding the arrears which occurred on the account in January 2005, and that some direct manual intervention was required at that point, and as a result were charged £413.00 in administration charges, as detailed in the redemption statement you have kindly sent us.

We are not disputing in any way that the mortgage account was redeemed at the time your letter states, nor are we disputing any of the dates, term lengths or interest percentage rates, these are clearly stated in your documentation. However we are somewhat confused by the statement implied in your letter that your charges “compensate us for the cost of administering your mortgage account effectively”, surely once a mortgage account passes its initial period, a redemption charges is no longer applicable, what vehicle exists to compensate you at this point?

As we have stated above, our dispute in this matter is directly related to the actual cost involved in redeeming the mortgage account, and how this actual cost relates to the amount charged.

Therefore we would be pleased to receive from yourselves a breakdown, in form of a receipt, detailing the minutiae of the £3490.13 charged and how that charge has been calculated, including cost of man hours, office supplies, telephone calls, etc. We would also be pleased if you would process and send us this information before the 24th July 2006, as this is the deadline we have set within our previous letters, and at which time we shall commence with County Court proceeding against you.

Alternatively, we would be pleased to receive reimbursement of the redemption charges in the form of a cheque or an undertaking from yourselves that payment will be forthcoming. Please note that any payment in the form of a cheque should be made solely in the name of ‘Mr J Turner’ as no joint bank account exists.

Furthermore, we are willing to enter into further meaningful dialogue with yourselves in an effort to settle this matter amicably, any such expression should, again, be made by letter before 24th July 2006.

Please note we are resolute in our stance, and would advise that this matter not be treated lightly.