NW Terminate All Accounts and Mortgage

[Mark Wilson]

I arrived home yesterday to find a letter from NW terminating my current account, reserve account, loan account and demanding repayment of the mortgage, default notes sent on all.

 

I have been experiencing difficulties for a long time now being self employed and was placed in the hands of their "special measures" people late last year.

 

My current account was a Private Banking account, though when I was last in special measures the bank returned me to "Call Centre" banking. In May they started to charge me £30 pm for the privelege of Private Banking and with income tight, one month, their charges and interest took the account over its limit and then added another £152 for DDs they would not pay. Suddenly I was way over so the loan could not be paid and the mortgage started to fall behind. I used the reserve account to keep feeding the family and pay some DDs.

 

I raised at the time the fact that I did not have in excess of £250 to bring the account below its limit, nor should I have to, they were charging me for a service they were not providing and if they were providing that service then my previous arrangement of having someone call me when a DD was to be presented and cancelling it if no funds were due ( thus avoiding charges) should apply. This way, they were wanting both their cake and eat it. Subsequently I then incurred £28 pm charges and £30plus in interest along with the £30 for PB and NW told me they would continue to take it until December. I told them this was not satisfactory and wanted resolution. The balance has now risen to £5200 o/d over my limit of £4k and this is purely a balance of their own creation. Had they seen sense at the start the account would be used and within its facility.

 

The loan account has not been paid now for 10 months and I have requested some offer of resolution to help but they have never responded.

 

The reserve account has my wifes name on it, it is her only access to banking facilities, her small wage and family allowance goes in and we pay DDs from it. There are no issues with this account nor its operation.

 

The mortgage has been in arrears and as I am in the "special measures" unit, I have email dialogue with one of their team. I insturcted them to take £270 in December to clear a chunk of the arrears and then in Apr instructed another £180 to bring the account all bar one month in arrears. Income has been really sparse but funds have remained in the account. Everytime I email for acknowledgement I am ignored and I noted from my account that payment had not been taken towards the mortgage.

 

Now I have a letter demanding repayment of the mortgage and defaulting all the other accounts stating a "breakdown" in relationship. They have not replied to emails ( I want all dialogue in writing not phone) and have only phoned once this year and that was last Wednesday when I was away. The message said "it is a while since we spoke, can we have an update". Before I have chance to do this I am now facing this additional mess.

 

They have also terminated the reserve account which has the morgage funds in that they have not collected yet, it has my wifes DDs and stuff going through it and if they remove this privelege then it creates endless hassle for her also. All accounts bar this one are just in my name, the reserve is in joint names so she is being punished for my problems.

 

Can they do all of this and demand repayment of the mortgage, even if it is only technically 1 month down (6 in their eyes but with 5 payments sat in the joint account that they have failed to transfer) and I will get family help to bring it up to date anyhow. Can they get a possession order or force redemption / sale on this basis?

 

The current account is a problem they need to try and resolve with me, I will stand my ground. The loan I have no desire to avoid, but it is not affordable currently.

 

At the end of the day I am an ex member of staff and feel very badly let down here by their failure to take payments when they hve email requests to do so, thus making a problem appear that in truth should exist.

 

Very stressful for all concerned here at a time when we simply want to get back on our feet.

 

Anyone got any advice?

[Mark Wilson]

To add insult to injury I have called the bank today and demanded a call back, to be told "Sorry we are a bit busy with month end and bank holiday so no idea when you will be called back". The tone with which I was spoken to was so condecending it is untrue, is this the way our government owned bank is happy to deal with our emotions?

[ncf355]

Mark,

 

I think you would get a better response to this in the legal issues area

 

I will try and alert a mod to your thread and get it itransferred there

 

With my limited knowledge I would think it unlikely they would get repossesion based on the facts above though you definitely need serious legal help to stop them getting one over you by default

[citizenB]

Thread moved to legal issues as requested.

 

Have just read your first post. I will flag your thread for the attention of the site team. Lets see if we can get you some help.

[caro]

The fact that the reserve account has your name on it may well allow them to take this action.

 

My first suggestion is that your wife gets a parachute account at a new bank and has her wages and child benefit paid into it so that can still be used for paying bills.

 

You could do the same, or even get a joint account, but I just think a totally separate account will secure this income to live on until you can get things sorted.

 

It's a while since you were on line, so can you please advise if there's any update on this, particularly with regard to the mortgage.

[Mark Wilson]

Finally made some resolution with NW

 

They insisted they had never had my notifications of payment. One I can understand but 5!!! Anyhow monies were trf to mortgage and the account is no longer subject to termination (as long as I pay it!)

 

The joint account - I have been and removed my name so that it is in wife name only and this means they can de list it from me. She has no NW debt, mortgage only in my name so there is no threat now to that account from setting off.

 

LOan and my personal account - been passed on to collection. Agreed it was the best way as I was never going to accept their charges on the current account and the loan is not serviceable as things stand. I will now enter into months of dialogue over what they charged to the loan account and why and will not agree to acknowledge anything until they give me answers to the questions I have posed for months. If the account is placed back under its limit, which it was until they went silly, then I see no reason why it cannot be returned to normal banking. If they insist on collection then Income and Expenditure will show a minimum available allowance over a rather long period of time. The loan will have the same I/E applied so the £300 pm outlay should come down to £50 or so when all is said and done, which suits me at the moment.

[Mark Wilson]

Thought I would provide a further update.

What concerns me here is that my emotional rollercoaster is being driven by an organisation that saw fit to lose £24bn, took our taxes to bail it out and then feel it has the right to advise us on how we deal with adversity!!!!!

Things have moved along a bit since my first post...

My mortgage tracker ended and went to SVR so my payment shot up by over £400. When resolving part of the arrears the Risk Unit told me I could do nothing about my mortgage "Product" unless my account was up to date. I said, finding £472 pm instead of £88 was in itself going to be difficult and that swithcing to a cheaper product was in their interests as well as mine.....nah, don't be daft.

Undeterred I decided to speak with Mortgage Services myself and they switched me there and then, knocking £120 from my outgoings and making the situation far easier. I reported this back to the Risk Unit who went "Oh"!!!

I agreed a date to pay the April payment and it was agreed they would allow me to run the mortgage one month in arrears until I could bring it up to date. When calling to make the agreed payment, my contact was away and I was told it could wait until the following Tuesday...guess what...they passed it over to Recovery Unit on the day I had phoned to pay!!!

The confusion though does not end there. It took me 4 different departments to be passed through to make payment and I was told I would be "written to".

This was a month ago and I finally got a letter on Monday, however in the last week I have been called TWICE a day by NW Collections and each time I have gone thru ID they have said, "sorry rung in error" and put the phone down.

Yesterday I called the number on the letter and was told, "you are not with Collections but with Recoveries, I will get them to call you". I said that I didn't understand as Collections have only just written to me and whilst doing so were passing me over to Recoveries...no answer. They told me Recoveries would be in touch.

Last night the phone went...."Recoveries" I thought so I answered. Nope, Collections and I demanded the guy stay on the phone and answer questions. We made the due mortgage payment to keep that in check and I took him through what had happened. He empathised, noted my comments and gave me a number for Recoveries.

This morning I called the Recoveries number, it is Triton, guess what...."your accounts are not with us, they are still being held by Collections".

I have to say that this is now a complete and utter farce, no wonder they lost so much money!!!!