Have recently had problems with a mortgage (lack of payments) and have incurred many fees from the mortgage lender (GMAC) and legal charges. As with bank charges they seem very high - £30 for a missed payment, £100 if they get legal services involved etc etc.

Has anyone got any information on challenging these fees in the way that people have successfully been challenging the bank charges?

Hi and welcome to the forum. You may well be able to get penalty charges back from your mortgage company- I have just reached a settlement with mine.

They key thing you need to do is to distinguish between penalty charges and charges for a service (no matter how unlike a service it may seem to you ). Also you need to remember that the costs and work involved in managing a mortgage account are not the same as those involved in managing a bank account.

For example, they may charge you £70 a month arrears management fee. You have to look at the record of the manual interventions on your account and the size of the lender to decide whether it's a penalty. It almost certainly is but I think a full DPA enquiry is needed to underpin any claim.

I was cautions in what I claimed back. I excluded anything I thought was a service and that included legal costs. I did include missed payments fees although you need to remember that the costs to the intended recipient of funds are likely to be greater than those of the sending institution.

I am moving this thread to other institutions as you've mentioned the name of your lender.

Please do have a read around the site including the FAQs and search for Kensington to see if anyone else is claiming against them.

I have just sent a request for refund to GMAC for charges + early redemption fee. I am no longer with them but I have the staements.