Thread: Halifax Overdraft - Help!!!!

Hi all,

I had an overdraft with Halifax for £5000.00 which i defaulted on in november - after letters requesting a payment arrangement going to and fro since decmebr i finally got an answer today

My offer was for £50.00 a month and i asked them to cease charges as my payment would not cover these and therfore my debt to them would increase (Charges from them now stand at £359.00)

The letter that i receoved back today states that i can pay the £50.00 for the next 8 months which will cover the fees they have charged and bring me back within my overdraft limit - however it also states that they may at the end of this period withdraw the overdraft which will leave me back to square one - nothing paid off and charges accruing.

Should i refuse this and wait for them to take me to court or pay it in every month as they have said??? I really dont know where to go from here

any help/advice would be really appreciated

Thanks

Grace

You should write back to them and reiterate your offer and say that you cannot agree to to the contents of their letter. Unfortunately, there are a lot of us in similar positions with the Halifax at the moment as for reasons better known to themselves they are not accommodating their customers and complaints are ultimately ending up with the fos.

Don't just accept what they say though, keep on to them, at least if it did finish up with court then you can show that you have made every attempt to come to an amicable settlement.

Just put this together - thanks for replying - do you think this would suffice?


Dear Sir/Madam

Acc/Ref No D/*******

Thank you for your letter of 01−03−2010.

We are very disappointed that we still seem unable to reach a satisfactory compromise in this case.


We cannot agree to the proposed payment arrangement as you have stated it is only until November – the payments of £50.00 per month that we pay will therefore only cover the charges that you have levied on this debt and we will be in the same postion that we are in now with no reduction of the debt.

The offer of £50 is of course still open to you to accept.

Yours faithfully

should also mention that they have sent a termination & default for this account but in their letter they said that come november they may take the facility away!!!???

Not sure how this works if it has already been terminated and a default notice served.

The whole things confuses me but i am learning more and more from this site!!!!!!!!!!!

Did they give you 14 days notice of the default in which to settle.

Your letter is fine with the exception of the last paragraph I would add the offer of £50 a month with no added charges .....

Hi Surprise,

checked all the correspondence and they sent the following

18th december 09 - default notice served under section 97 (1) of the cca 1974. They only ask for £124.59 (which is just made up of fees) to be paid in before 15th January 2010


30th December 09 - saying that as a result of us not paying the amount requested by the due date (that being 15th january) they have terminated the credit agreement and that the account will now be managed by a debt recovery team!!!

so they have terminated before the date they said they would???

When did you actually receive it? if they have been given 14 days clear notice than this is correct, however, I did think that the sum to be what is outstanding excluding any fees.

I would also challenge this is in your letter. Send them a copy of the default notice and ask them why the agreement was terminated prior to the date on the default notice.

I received the termination in the first week of january, i dont understand how they can terminate before the default "period" is up, and also why they are defaulting for the daily fee rather than the full amount, my online banking actually say that i still have a 5000 overdraft limit even though they have demanded that i repay it immediately so it looks like i still have the facility

When you write to them head your letter OFFICIAL COMPLAINT they will then have to go down their complaints route and at the end if you're not happy they will give you the option of going to the fos. Address all the issues in your letter and see what they come back with.

Hi can I ask you the background to this please so I can offer some advice ?Exactly how did you defaulted on an overdraft?
From what I am reading here you went over your Overdraft limit and took no action to bring it back under the agreed limit. Not judging you just trying to understand exactly what happened.
It is a very large overdraft and £50pcm is very small. You are looking at 10years to pay this debt off and that does not include any charges.

The reason I am asking is that there are approaches you can take here but it really depends on your personal situation and how you got into this situation.

I have first hand experience of this so can run you through some pit falls and options but the decisions you make right now will affect how this turns out. My credit rating has been destroyed by a similar problem and I am having to work very hard to repair it, I hope to advise you so you don't make the same mistakes I did.

Finally, last comment I would make for the Bigger picture do pursue the FSA, fos etc but please do not rely on them for help right now, you will be on your own here but CAG will help.

Hi can I ask you the background to this please so I can offer some advice ?Exactly how did you defaulted on an overdraft?
From what I am reading here you went over your Overdraft limit and took no action to bring it back under the agreed limit. Not judging you just trying to understand exactly what happened. The reason i went over is because they started the new overdraft fees which were nearly three times the normal monthly interest - unfortunately times are very tight at the moment, my nuresery fees had just gione up agaion and i just couldnt sustain it - i hoped to be able to come to some arrangement with them
It is a very large overdraft and £50pcm is very small. You are looking at 10years to pay this debt off and that does not include any charges. I realise this, but at the moment its all i can afford and its better than nothing.

The reason I am asking is that there are approaches you can take here but it really depends on your personal situation and how you got into this situation.

I have first hand experience of this so can run you through some pit falls and options but the decisions you make right now will affect how this turns out. My credit rating has been destroyed by a similar problem and I am having to work very hard to repair it, I hope to advise you so you don't make the same mistakes I did.

Finally, last comment I would make for the Bigger picture do pursue the FSA, fos etc but please do not rely on them for help right now, you will be on your own here but CAG will help. - Thanks four your help, any advice is much appreciated - Im not trying to run away from this debt i want to make payments but it seems they will only agree to this until nov this year then they may take the facility away which will leave me back at square one again 9th March 2010 08:56surpriseRe: Halifax

I understand completely, I will honour what I need to legally and running does not help it makes it worse. Its cases like yours that make me so angry with the banks as they do not help you but lets help you if we can and most importantly help yourself. The first thing I would do is write down an accurate time line of your problems. I am confused as the default came in November, but the charges did not happen until December? I am reading the thread as this, I send apologies if this is not the case I am trying to help, hence asking for the info.

You have an overdraft which went over the limit and you were not able to bring it back within your agreed facility. The bank requested you return to your limit and as you have not been able to accommodate the bank has therefore terminated your overdraft facility and passed the account to the debt recovery team. This is standard practise as I understand it. In response you have offered a payment which will bring the account back within the arrangement by November 2010. As you overdraft is £5000 and you can only offer £50 a month repayment it would be clear that you are not able to support such a facility, it would be against best practice for the bank to continue to offer you this facility based on your financial situation. As you are not able to even pay the fees back I can only conclude that you are not able to use the OD on a regular basis anyway or you are not paying it back but living inside it each month. You are living on borrowed money and paying for it each month, this is not economical viable for you. Unfortunately its not viable for the bank as you have defaulted, up to then they had no issue despite your financial situation but once you start missing the payments the gloves are off.

If what I say above is anything like your circumstances then I urge you to put together a time line of your problems with the bank. Put together all the letters you have sent and received and get along to the CAB and call the National Debt Line. The banks may have screwed up with the default notices but you have to face the bigger picture that £5K is a lot of money and you are looking at 10years of repaying a debt, so regardless of whether the facility continues of not you need to get rid of it in the best possible way for you.

The reason I say this is that I pay no interest on my debt. I pay £40 per month and because it has been going on for 2 years they were prepared to knock a £1000 off so I paid in one chunk. No interest and a £1000 discount.........that is the route to go but you need the proper advice and you need to present your case to the bank.

One last piece of advice, the Bank know that if your situation is difficult no judge in the land will rule a higher fee and you should push for no interest to be charged. Do the right thing otherwise they may default on you and this will go on your credit file. It shows up on mine as big 8 and my credit score is -250 from where is should be as a result.

let me know your thoughts ?

Hi,

I think i used "defaulted in November" incorrectly in my original post - what i meant by this was that I failed to pay anything into the account in november.

They didnt send a default notice until december and then as above, they terminated the agreement 12 days later (Although as i said i am still showing as having a £5000 limit on my online banking).

I have sent countless letters offering the £50.00 and asking them to suspend charges to help me reduce the debt but as above i didnt receive any reply back until last week.

i received a letter last week saying they didint accept my complaint but i could start paying 50.00 per month as of 1st april but that this arrangement would only be in place til november - i think the only reason they accepted it at all is because i sent a ltter recordered delivery telling them that if they couldnt accept my repayment plan then they should take me to court - got templates from this site.

I am worried that if i do start paying this (which i want to do) they are just going to cover the charges they have already levied and then i will be back at square one.

To be honest i have had this worry hanging over my head for three years and have just been servicing the bare minimum interest because i wwas afraid to face up to it - I just feel that i need to get something in place to get a regular payment going - If my situation improves any then i would be able to make a larger payment, but i cant see that happening in the next year or two

Thansk again

using the templates from CAG is a great start. Speak to the National Debt line, see if you can get this account closed and get the debt on a repayment scheme with no interest. CAB can help with putting together an offer for the Bank. Once in offer they should cease to put interest on the debt. At the moment they are just milking you, if you are genuinely in financial hardship you can agree to a repayment scheme that is fair. They backed of because they know in court you will win. Usually if you have a good income and expenses break down, which you can prove, Judges will ensure you pay priory debts first, followed by non priority. Overdrafts are non priority. I have the same discussion every month, can you increase your payments, no, ok thanks.

Need somebody with a good legal knowledge of the CCA for Overdrafts but if they terminate the agreement then I suspect they terminate the right to collect interest hence forth (Please do not expect that to be true I'm guessing). If you genuinely want to pay this debt back and have just been servicing the debt tell Halifax that you which to agree to a repayment schedule for the overdraft and that under your circumstances all interest payments from this point onward must be also terminated.

Good luck... lets know how you get on so we can continue to offer advise to others.

I will get another letter typed up and keep you posted on what they say

I have already raised this issue with the fos. My angle was that if you put a cheque in the bank they say weekends are not banking days, however, when they apply charges and the date falls on a Sunday, which it did in my case, it was ok because the date had been pre-notified. So as long as you are told that the date of the charges and they fall on a Saturday or a Sunday its ok. I did actually say to th FOS they make their rules and regs up as they go along and a customer will never win with them.

Its just wrong, very wrong that people are now only in positions to repay the interest on the debt and not make any headway into repaying the principle, this is exactly what the bank want, they don't make any money on the principle just the interest as money only exists as debt.

Please let us know what happens we must continue to flag, protest and do all we can to stop Halifax milking thier more unfortunate customers.

Hi all,

well its now november and i set up a standing order in april and have paid the £50 they agreed every month on time - received a letter today from blair oliver scott demanding repayment of the full £5009 (Balance less the charges they levied which i have paid off as above) - so what i was dreading happening has hap[pened and i am now back to square one - dont really know where to go from here - do i cancel the standing order as it goes direct to the bank account i was using or do i contnue paying it in???

Thanks for any advice