Platform Charging £80+VAT to "Visit us"!

[lfcweb]

I would be grateful for advice on this, just received the letter (see atachment) from Platform our mortgage lender they are sending an "arrears counsellor" to visit us and charging £80+VAT to our mortgage, and these apply even if we "cancek the case" whatever the hell that means.

We run our own small business and frequently have to wait for creditors to pay our invoices before we can pay ourselves and then we are usually late with our payments by around 2 weeks no more than 3. But we are always "upto date" by the time the next monthly payments is due.

Platform are getting around £480 a year out of us and now they want another £80+VAT. We have tried complaining but they just say they sent us a list of charges they make when we took out the mortgage in 2005 and have sent updates since.

Is there anything we can do to stop these rip off charges? And can we get any of these Charges Back?

[Goldlady]

Well the good news is that you can reclaim those stupid charges. We have a mortgage with Platform but have been good, we had a secured loan with GE Money and they charged us countless £40 late payment charges - I am waiting for a cheque for about £1700 as we speak as I issued proceedings against them once we had managed to refinance the loan (strangely enough with Platform) and they agreed to settle.

GE did the "debt counsellor" crap with us for about the same cost and the guy who came round was more like a bailiff - told us the dire consequences of repossession (they did try once) and also told us not to pay any credit cards as they are not important. It was good fun telling the GE card people that their secured lending department had told us not to pay them

Presume that Platform are saying that if you refuse to see the debt counsellor that they will charge you anyway. But I know from when they guy came to see us he was of no help, said he could recommend stuff to GE but at the end of the day his input was not considered by them.

You could reclaim the charges now IMO - I decided to wait as it was our life's mission to pay GE off after the sh*t they caused for us. We are self employed too and I know exactly what you mean about being a few days late through no fault of your own.

[lfcweb]

Thanks Goldlady for the advice, i think in the current climate we will have to sit tight with Platform as I guess we would struggle getting another mortgage at a sensible rate given our current temporary financial issues. I guess I will just keep the guy here for the day to get my monies worth, perhaps he could do some gardening for us.

Thanks

lfcweb

[Goldlady]

I have to say that Platform were actually very good when we had our annus horriblis or two, and they eventually lent us enough to repay the GE loan off as well. I suppose like all companies it depends who is dealing with your case, but they were helpful when we did have arrears, unlike GE.

[lfcweb]

The crazy thing is we are not even in arrears at the moment, yes we pay late each month usally by 10-12 days (for which they charge us and extra £40 for) but we are always back on track the next month. We had a letter today from the company they instructed to vist us a "Specialist Mortgage Counsellor" claimed the letter will visit, however at the bottom of the letter it states "xxx are not allowed to give financial advice", so perhaps they should be termed "Pursuaders", though quite what they want to counsel us on is anyones guess we pay as soon as we can and are not in arrears!

[Goldlady]

Can you not change your payment date? I seem to remember we did that with them at one point. Just a thought. Not that you will probably be any better off if people still don't pay you in time.

[sillygirl1]

This charge is listed as a 'no way' by the OFT. Let the OFT know about this.