Written by John Kruse, one of the leading experts on Bailiff Law, this consumer friendly guide is essential reading for anyone who comes into contact with a bailiff.
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a bailiff has, and also what they cannot do when collecting debts and repossessing goods etc.
I recently wrote to Kensington Mortgages about their monthly arrears charge of £50 I asked them to justify and send a Breakdown of their Liquidated losses.
Their reply is as follows:-
A £50 arrears fee is debited to your account balance when you are one month or more in arrears. This fee is to cover our additional expenses as a result of your account being in arrears. We have to send a letter out each month , which has to include the arrears amount and to show a statement of any debits and credits made in the previous month. We also have to review your account each month to ensure performance of any arrangement or to secure payments towards the arrears: this means that we have to employ extra staff which in turn means an increase in overhead costs. (No breakdown was sent)
I am sorry that you feel we have added these fees "in terrorem". I can assure you that we do not intend to scare you into making payments onto your account and the fees are there to cover our reasonable admin expenses, in line with section 49.3 of the T&C's of the mortgage...........etc, etc.....
Do you think this answer justifies their charge or can you suggest what I should do next.
Any help appreciated.
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Advice given is purely my opinion, and is not based on any legal training.
I know kensington mortgages fairly well as I am a mortgage adviser and can tell you that the response you have got is the biggest load of BS that I have ever heard.
There is a nice big office in Skipton, North Yorkshire, and they administer mortgages for over 30 different mortgage companies. Kensington being one of them.
I know this because I have to send mortgage apps off to the same address for each one
Having spoken to intermediary support staff for the various lenders that hold this same address, I can confirm that these companies have outsourced the administration to the company that occupies this building.
I also understand that they all use the same computer system for all the different lenders as their main call centre has to be linked into this. I know this because all the numbers are the same except for the last 4 numbers - so it is 0870 601 xxxx.
This should aid your case because if you go down the route of charges are not a true reflection of cost incurred, then you could argue that the cost of system is not anything to do with it because the system services over 30 different lenders and was not a cost to Kensington directly.
For specific work which may be different to the other lenders whilst trying to administer your account whilst in arrears, I am not sure but I am pretty certain that you will be able to prove that it isnt a true cost.
I make this assumption on the basis of experience of outsourcing. Usually when this happens the company receiving the contract will have bonuses and penalties for hitting certain teargets and I would argue that the fees you mention help pay these bonuses that Kensington would have to pay or offset losses of the penalties that the administration company pay when targets are missed or hit.
I would imagine that if you can just follow the CAG recommended steps and letters and take them to court when they fail to pay, You could use this knowledge a little more to get get the judge to think in your favour...
I was just worried that they had justified the charges in the letter, by quoting "extra staff" and "extra work" etc.,
Should I at this stage send the "14 days or else" threat.
I have to go to court in mid may as they want to reposess the house. I only actually owe 3 months arrears (because of illness prior to Xmas), but with all the charges ,etc, it has made it the equivalent of about five months arrears.
Should I leave it and mention it to the judge then, or put in a counter claim for that hearing?
It is only now having read your reply that I realise that many companies use the same address.
Before remortgaging with Kensington, my previous mortgage was with a company called Amber Homeloans, which later became Redstone Mortgages.
Have just checked and found the addresses are very similar and the phone number also starts 0870 601 ----.
When I was with them, I incurred arrears fees, so might try to recover those aswell.
It is only now having read your reply that I realise that many companies use the same address.
Before remortgaging with Kensington, my previous mortgage was with a company called Amber Homeloans, which later became Redstone Mortgages.
Have just checked and found the addresses are very similar and the phone number also starts 0870 601 ----.
When I was with them, I incurred arrears fees, so might try to recover those aswell.
Cheers
Buzz.
You are correct and both those companies are still there.... They are different companies (amber/redstone) and KMC. So they will have their own charging structures and staff but they are employed by the one outsourcing company using the same computer system, using the same printers etc.
You just need to follow the claim guidance notes provided by this forum to justify taking court action, if required. If you do get to court, read the notes by bankfodder when you get to that stage and you will see that it says that you should use specific questions to prove your case and to get the judge to think (my words not bankfodders) they are the incompetent fools we know they are and dont have a clue.
I am sympathetic but what KM say is true.
Believe me they are taking on extra staff bigtime in Skipton to administer arrears albeit on minimum wage.
Whether it justifies £50 I am not too sure but it all costs.
Good luck anyway.
I dont think KMC can justify th £50 charge tbh as it does not cost that to send a letter and it does not take one person 8 hours to review an account if you were to base your calcs on mininum wage.
I am guessing that they will have automated reports and diary systems to allow them to speedily identify accounts in arrears and those that are defaulting against arrangments etc.
The other point is that KMC do not directly get charged the cost of hiring staff because of the outsourcing contract in place and it is a proven case that the cost of staffing is one of the main reasons companies use outsourcers.
I would imagine it to be fairly difficult for the outsourcer to immediately charge that to KMC. KMC would have agreed a price before signing the contract and would have set key performace indicators which would activate penalty clauses should they not be met.
I would imagine with the market that KMC operates that they have to keep that arrears below a certain level. If this level goes above a certain amount and doesnt show sign of being reduced then I would imaging penalties will be imposed .
The outsourcing company then I guess would employ further staff to reduce this and I am led to believe that it has not been unusual to hire temps. The cost of hiring these staff will no doubt be cheaper than the penalties incurred.
I obviously do not know the ins and outs of the contract but I think that with what I have said, you would have to get KMC to show their hand in the court room if you got that far when they were explaining the true cost of chasing arrears.
In regard to telephone numbers, this is how it works:
0870 numbers are assigned to landline numbers and just mask the real number your dialling. Business or indeed personal home numbers can get as many free 0870 numbers as they wish and assign to just one telephone or fax number.
When they call you they give out their real number which is HML. See caller display.
The actual number is: 01756 692000
Redstone for example will give out this number: 0870 601 3290 but it is the above number mentioned.
Try it and see.
By assigning 0870 numbers they see on their display it is REDSTONE for example and act accordingly. Or they will see it is Kensington or many of the others.
There is reason to believe and we have proof that the same people are 'administrating' (a mortgage term with ramifications) many clients’ accounts and as such contravening the Data Protection Act. For example: if you were to leave (by way of a mortgage advisor saving you from repossession and placing you with another 'lender', then the new 'lender' could/will be the same people you just had all the hassle with now pretending to be the new 'lender'. Back to square ONE!!
You may wish to know why I place 'lender' in inverted commas?
They are not 'lenders' in the traditional sense of understanding.
They (sub prime) CANNOT lend directly to consumers.
They CANNOT provide additional lending after securitisation of the mortgage.
They ARE just bond holders and your mortgage is solely a secured (be it fairly big) loan.
They DO NOT allow second mortgages or further borrowing on your equity (as this is why they lent to you in the first place) by 3rd party lenders.
They have NO accounting mechanism to manage ANY arrears (despite their pretence that they do and following CML/FSA guidelines (lip service)).
Home repossession is NOT the last resort, it is the first.
Notifying your 'lender' of any possible problems even in advance only serves ONE PURPOSE and that is to ALERT them to a possible issue and it is immediately passed to their litigation/collection dept.
They WILL inform you of mortgage increasing/decreases but in the former will NOT provide you with the reason in the letter.
Redston in 2006 stole ADDITIONAL monies from mortgage account holders bank accounts via direct debit and ONLY 'managed' the situation by exception (i.e. those who noticed or complained). They did this twice as we know it and many other times from those who have not noticed the slight change in payment at the begining of thier mortgage.
This monies runs into the millions considering the volume of accounts. It also offsets any deliquent behaviour by payees and retains the value/ratings of the bond.
There is NO supervision of thier accounts or methods by external parties.
They are NOT high street lenders and as such do not have 'saver accounts' or can anyone demonstrate on the street by thier mal practice. They DO NOT care if your upset!
They ARE credit managers/collection agency ONLY!!
The mortgage is part of a bigger portfolio (normally around a purchase of circa £90m) and being part of a sale or the transfer immediately after signing up with the originator lender.
They do NOT employ Mortgage Advisors and therefore cannot offer you advice or further lending facilities or indeed holiday payments etc.
In essence, you are lead into a false sense of security as they portray themselves (as do the middle men) as traditional high street lenders but they are bond holders of mortgage accounts that the value of the portfolio is rated by Standards & Poor or Fitche Ratings. The more arrears there are the decline in rating and the value of the whole portfolio.
You are therefore not a customer.
You are a value...a return on an investment.
It is your equity they are after!! Try borrowing on the basis of little or no equity and do the sasme again on a large equity base....see which one they will accept!!
hi guys just wanted to say don,t waste your time and money with threats of legal action as it don,t work we are currently facing repossession for one missing payment that kensington themselves lost despite us sending proof three times even our solicitor is trying to get a result but they just ignore them this company is th worst mortgage lender in the market just google there name to see for yourselves its all bad remarks of similar problems there extremely high charges if any one wants to help me im going to watchdog and if they cant help ill go to house of commons via my local mp the more evidence against them i can get the better my details are below
mr c barnes
07527733947
please text or call if willing to help try to stop these people.............
kensington nearly ruined me and they should be stopped. By the end of my mortgage they were trying to charge me nearly £2000 per month on a 140k mortgage so would have got 600k back if i had continued
i feel for ya buddy.....i ended up getting repossessed and it doesn't end there. they charged me an extra 15k mortgage redemption fee and go dknows what after that. ended up that they sold the house for more than the mortgage and i still owed them 28k. started paying them 250 quid a month for the last 2 years to pay off shortfall and I still owe them 28k because of the interest
Kensington Mortgages
of their Liquidated losses.
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Originally Posted by seminole
