Platform home loans unreasonable behaviour

[ICY]

For a number of years we have had a mortgage with platform, we have never paid late or missed a payment, in 2008 the property became unsuitable for our needs due to other commitments, there was no chance of selling it as the mortgage was way too high and values had gone through the floor, so we asked if we could let the property. Platform agreed to this.

 

They charged a annual £35 "Tenancy Review Fee - As part of us agreeing to let your residential property we have the right to conduct a review. If we choose to do so we will tell you at the time of the review in writing. The non-refundable fee is to cover the administration cost"

According to the current Tariff they also charge a £72 Letting Application fee, I cant remember how much I paid.

 

When pressed recently what this "administration" is they write to tell us its due and receive my letter and the insurance which I send them, they then scan them to my file, I do more admin than they do.

For the first year they wanted this fee every 6 months, which was ridiculous, they then agreed to do it every year.

 

This year on the 24th April I received a letter telling me the tenancy is due for renewal and they need to see a tenancy agreement (same tenants for past 4 yr) and payment of £35 or they will class the tenancy as unauthorised and increase the interest rate by 1%

This had to wait until pay day came around, in the meantime in the 2nd week of May I received the same letter again but this time asking for £55 over 50% increase, when I rang to question I was told that the rate went up on the 1st of May, when I questioned exactly what kind of administration could possibly cost £55 all she could say was writing a few letters and scanning them, when asked how they could justify such an increase there was no response, nor was there a response to the fact I had only just over a week before the end of May had a request for £35.

She did say its all covered in new tariff of charges that I received, but when I said just because you have sent me a list of amounts that does not make them fair or right, I could write anything and send it, that doesnt make it right, lawfully or morally.

 

They have also been causing me headaches over my buildings insurance, they demand to see a copy of the policy schedule each year which I have no problem with if it wasnt for the way they go about it.

 

I have a landlords insurance policy and have had from day 1, this year on renewal I received a letter asking for a copy of the schedule, I faxed this to them for some reason I also had the hindsight to note the date and time I sent the fax, 2 week later I received a further letter from Platform stating that as they had not received any insurance detailts from me they had gone ahead and arranged their own policy which I cannot claim on nor would I see any documents, this would be charged to me at a cost of £21.20 a month and a £10 administration fee had been debited to my mortgage account and will accrue interest at the same rate as my mortgage (for the next 23 years!)

 

I called giving the exact date and time I sent the fax (without this they would never have found it, as they didnt even bother to process is) she looked through the fax system and found the fax, looked over the policy and said everything is fine the charges will be removed straight away, she could offer no explanation as to why despite me doing my part, they had failed to carry out the simplest of tasks.

 

You would think that would be the end of it ...

 

not a chance, when they wrote telling me the fee was now £55 they also demanded confirmation that the buildings insurance covers residential letting and confirmation of the sum insured, both of which were on the policy schedule, which they checked when they previously told me everything was fine.

Then last week I received a call saying there was no date on the policy schedule which is ridiculous, I pointed out exactly where the date is to be told that she couldn't actually see the documents I had sent as they weren't on her screen anyway and she was just going off what the system said, why was she calling me without confirming the facts first? I reminded her that the policy was checked while I was on the phone after they claimed they didn't have it but all she said was maybe the pages didn't come through clear ARGH

So yet again I faxed the policy schedule off to them.

 

Can companies lawfully use "administration fees" to profiteer, which is clearly the case, if not I want to be an admin worker for them as they must be earning an awful lot of money, what they do they cant do right. Do we really have to keep being shafted like this.

 

Incidentally the rent doesn't even cover the mortgage, insurances & upkeep so its not as if we are doing it to make money.

 

I hate this company, the Mortgage point told us that these will be the only people we could use at the time I had 1 default on my credit file which should never have been on my credit file (and has been removed now) my wife had nothing on hers, Mortgage Point also made us take up a specific life insurance or pay a massive amount of money on top i believe around £1000

[dx100uk]

not my bag

 

however, I seriously doubt the legality of making you both or either of you take out Life Insurance

 

on a normal mortgage the only thing you ust have is building insurance

 

as for the admin fees...that doesn't sound right either.

 

but as I say , letting etc is not my bag.

 

dx

[ICY]

it gets better, I got back home this afternoon to yet another letter from them firstly wanting the £20 to make up to £55 for the admin fee, and then yet again asking for my insurance policy which was written the day after I faxed the insurance for the 2nd time, this is heading towards harrassment.

 

Also arriving today was this years mortgage statement and they have not taken off the £10 admin fee for arranging insurance and have still charged for the policy despite telling me all charges would be removed. this is beyond a joke.

 

The life insurance was when we took the mortgage out and was something the Mortgage point who arranged the loan insisted on.

[dx100uk]

IMHO I would get reclaim the whole of those 2 life policies

 

they are NOT compulsory

 

me & the mrs got over £17k back out of skittish widows

on an a very old C&G mortgage they pulled the same trick on.

 

as for the admin fees,

i'd try reclaiming those

 

something smells here about the whole thing

 

dx