Halifax attempting to arrange a home visit

[tom53]

OK, I see - remember I'm new to this and what's obvious to you, isn't to me.

 

So the fastest route (rather than spend hours finding old statements) is to send off an SAR and cheque for £10 to them?

 

And request they cancel any visits.

 

Once I have the information and have ran the charges through the cisheetv101.xls spreadsheet to come up with a figure, send the charges letter you posted the link to.

 

Correct?

[tom53]

The cisheet won't really work for me - too many interest rate changes and pointless to attempt to take an average.

 

A simple spreadsheet covering the 120 recoverable months multiplying cumulative charges/interest on charges by monthly interest flat rate would provide a more accurate figure that the lender would have more difficulty in reducing.

[BornThisWay]

Tom I understand your annoyance at the charges levied on your loan, and you have set me thinking that I am going to see if I can reclaim any of the ones which have been applied to my mortgage for arrears, BUT I really do think you are losing sight of the major issue here.

 

It is beyond incredible that Halifax have let you get so far into arrears with your mortgage without trying to repossess your home. As someone stated above that could be because they are making nice profits out of their charges but I would not risk this a moment longer.

 

To be honest, although £125 is steep, I think Halifax are being quite restrained in sending an advisor, the next step could be a possession order and your failure to engage with the lender, or co-operate in any way could, I fear, go against you in Court when you have to plead with the Judge to be allowed to keep your home.

 

Don't take your eye off the ball here. By all means claim back anything you can get, but make your no. 1 priority coming to some sort of arrangement with the lender to start paying back what you owe because they might just work out that a Judge might not have sympathy for your plight if he sees that you have just stuck your head in the sand for so long.

[tom53]

I agree 100%. If you see post no. 24, my thoughts are that we were going off track, and take on board your comments about the courts.

 

I felt they were easier on me as it's the last year of the mortage, but it's getting silly now,

 

I have started drafting a letter to the Halifax which I will fax so they have it first thing Monday morning so I have proof of receipt.

 

In this I request they cancel any visits which would add to the costs. I state that I can recommence payments, initially at £300 per month to them commencing on the 28th of July.

 

I have requested they refund any charges they have made during the course of the mortgage and we will see their initial reponse to this and then look at SARs etc.

 

Thanks,

 

 

Tom

[tom53]

I wrote to them on 6th July asking them to send me a Income and Expenditure form in order to calculate the payments

so I could set up a standing order with my bank.

I said that they had wrote to say they were arranging for an agent to visit me and asked them not to do this, as it will only add further costs to the mortgage.

 

I said I had attempted to calculate the actual mortgage balance but was rather confused by their charges,

which were never clearly explained.i.e. letters showed different arrears (balances) and asked them to clarify this.

 

I said on the subject of fees,

I had recently been advised that the charges made by building societies could be reclaimed along with the compound interest

for the last 12 years and said I would be grateful if they would refund these as this would reduce my balance

by a considerable amount and helpin my repayments.

 

I faxed this letter to the Collection Department three to the fax number on their letterhead so I had proof of receipt.

Four and a weeks later I have no response to this.

 

I did, however, receive a letter saying I had been charged £45 for the agents fees.

This was followed by a letter to say legal proceedings would commence in 15 working days unless I contacted them immediately.

 

I immediately faxed them to say I had not received a response to my original letter

and that their letter was received on the sixth working day.

I explained I had suffered a mild heart attack since writing and again asked for the I and E form so we could agree a payment plan.

That was over a week ago and still no response.

[dx100uk]

did you do a charges spreadsheet [CISHEET]

and send that too?

 

dx

[tom53]

No, because of the varying interest rates during the period.

[dx100uk]

as post 21

 

dx

[tom53]

i don't feel the form is a very accurate way to calculate the charges and that the fees should be tackled once we've entered some form of dialogue and agreed a payment plan.

[dx100uk]

ok your call

 

dx

[Rorschach]

Stop thinking about the charges. They are something you can deal with and maybe get a refund of.

Your priority should be whether you can afford this mortgage. Ignore the charges and that, if you just owed your monthly instalment each month could you pay it? As you have missed nearly 15 instalments this is questionable.

Please Be Realistic.

[citizenB]

Try rewording your letter into a Formal complaint, tom. They are obliged to respond within 8 weeks.

 

Advise that you are aware they are receiving your letters, but you are not receiving any response and you want to sort this issue out.

[Rorschach]

When was the last time you paid them?

[tom53]

Thank you both.

 

I would have preferred to keep things in a written format but made a quick call to ask them to put any action on hold and I would call them properly at the beginning of next week. This will allow me time to propose a realistic plan.

 

They haven't banged on the door at all, just sent reminders, and I have tended to pay those banging loudest.

 

Once we have a monthly figure agreed, I will get the first payment out of the way and then look at reclaiming any fees, if this is possible. Great if it is, I would say around a third of the current balance (from what I can work out) is fees and interest on it.

Edited August 15, 2013 by tom53

[Lea_HTH]

As someone stated above that could be because they are making nice profits out of their charges but I would not risk this a moment longer.

 

.

 

The above statement is illogical. How can they be making 'profits' from the charges? The OP isn't even paying the mortgage, let alone the charges. The account is just in deficit.

 

OP, you're spending an awful lot of time saying 'I want to make an offer', but you haven't actually made one. That will not look good in court - nor will 15 months of non-payment, irrespective of any charges.

 

Make an actual offer, in writing and then start making payment according to that offer. If it goes to court you'll be in a position to tell the judge that even though you failed to make payment for such a long period of time, you are now able to do so and have indeed started to do so. It'll take at least a couple of months to get into court, so you should be able to show two, maybe even three payments IF you start paying now. All this delay shows one thing: lack of affordability.

 

Charges can be reclaimed as and when, your priority is to make an offer and stick to it.

 

Incidentally, when this goes to court, don't labour over paying whoever shouted loudest, there are priority debts and your mortgage is one of those along with any other secured loans and council tax. Anything else is secondary and judges don't take kindly to people saying they prioritised other things above keeping the roof over their heads.

[Rorschach]

I agree with the above post whole heatedly. The priority is what you can afford to pay now, charges and other issues are completely seperate.

[wishboneash]

that happened to me with gmac charged 125 but the visit person was dismayed when running through my finances that they wanted me to go to court and get a repossession order as we both degreed a payment plan for them good luck

[Grotesque]

Good one.

[tom53]

Thanks for all your advice have agreed to repay them at £70 per month until February when a 20k bank loan is fully paid off and I will have an extra £430 a month at my disposal and will increase the Halifax payments to £375pm.

 

Why am I repaying the loan before secured debts? Because it's with my bank who give me 10k in overdrafts on my business and personal accounts and have been good with me through thick and thin. Plus they would take the money one way or another.