NRAM Loan - Won't Agree New Repayment; Now With Loss and Recoveries Dept!?!

[gclatworthy]

We have an unsecured loan with NRAM, which was part of a together mortgage. Our fixed term came to an end just as the recession hit and they would not/could not offer us a new mortgage. This of course meant we needed to remortgage and the interest rate on our loan soared to 12.79%. During this time we accrued arrears on the loan.

 

Around 2 years ago, I agreed a new payment arrangement with their arrears department (a chap named Les who was a senior payment advisor). The minimum payment required was £320 on the initial sum borrowed, but as we had arrears I agreed a repayment of £380 per month. We have continued to make this payment every month, on time.

 

In May this year I received our annual statement. Concerned that the closing balance on the loan did not seem to be going down I checked through the statement more thoroughly. I discovered that the £380 monthly payment agreed with Les did not cover the interest being added to the loan each month. As a result our loan balance was going up, not down.

 

That very same day I received a phone call from Les at NRAM telling me they needed to agree a new monthly repayment (according to him there wasn’t an agreement in place). I stopped him short and told him what I had discovered on our statement. At this point he seemed to drop his ‘I am superior to you attitude’ and quietly say he would look at our account – I am staggered he wasn’t looking at this already, considering why he was calling in the first place.

 

He went on to give me some convoluted and totally pointless explanation of how the repayments are calculated according to the interest added on the initial loan balance. Again I stopped him short telling him we had been overpaying (or so we thought) and that the payment amount had been agreed with him, over a year ago. At the time of that conversation it was never mentioned that the repayment amount would not cover the interest charged. Indeed to my mind, this repayment amount should never have been agreed with us.

 

I went on to tell him how unhappy we were. For over a year we have been paying this loan only to discover we have not cleared any of it. We would have been better keeping the money in our pockets! I then asked him to tell me how much the monthly repayment should be to ensure the loan was paid off within the remaining term. My own calculations suggested a repayment of £450/m (different calculators gave slightly different amounts) and his calculations were around this figure. I told him I would need to talk with my husband at that point and that I would call back to complete an income and expenditure form and to set the payment in place.

 

When I called back I came through to someone different and went through the income and expenditure form with her. As I wasn’t sure on a couple of figures I said I would ring back. On the third time of calling I came through to someone else again. I explained to her that I needed to complete the form and set up a new payment arrangement. After completing the form, she went on to tell me that she couldn’t put a new payment plan in place as the account was under investigation by head office because of the previous payment agreement and the interest charges (as explained above). She told to me to expect to hear from them within 7 days. That was over 1 month ago.

 

As the end of May approached I made a payment of £400, despite not hearing back from them. A few days later I receive a letter from NRAM telling me the account had been passed to the Loss and Recoveries Department because a formal notice had been issued – we have never received a formal notice. The letter went on to ask us to call them to complete an income and expenditure form (!?!) I then receive another letter thanking me for the last payment and telling me they will not be taking any action against us for the next 31 days! To date I have still not heard from their head office.

 

So now I am wondering what to do next. I could call the loss and recoveries department, but feel I will just be going around in circles. I have a feeling no-one is properly reviewing our account or looking at the notes on it. The letter from this department implies we have not been paying each month, but we have made every monthly payment for the last couple of years and have been overpaying them.

 

Any advice would be much appreciated. I feel it is time to go straight to the organ-grinder (or even the FOS) and begin to get everything down in writing.

 

On a side note, I thought it was a legal requirement for statements to include the original sum borrowed? Ours do not. The opening and closing balance is there, but not the original loan amount.

[OLIVE.FAMILY]

Hi

 

I feel that you should start looking into this yourself.

I had a similar situation last year. We have hefty arrears on our secured loan. The CAB made arrangement for us to pay a nominal amount that would ensure the arrears would be clear by the end of the loan. In september we got a letter saying we needed to increase that by £200!!!! We asked why and like you they fave us the run around. In the end we discovered it was due to compound interest being added each month ....some months it was as high as £190 so our £25 extra was not even close to covering this.

 

I sent an SAR request and founds loads wrong...lots of charges added along with the compound interest and other things.

 

I am thinking maybe you should do the same. Send them a SAR with £10 get ALL the info and statements they have on you and reclaim the charges this will most probably put a huge dent in those arrears you have

 

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[gclatworthy]

Thanks for your help - will certainly follow that up.

 

This company are such a bunch of sharks! It is quite shocking reading other NRAM threads on here and other forums. The way they have treated people and administer peoples accounts is disgraceful.

[OLIVE.FAMILY]

Yup my mortgage company is the same. Subprime companies are all sharks I think...how they have got away with so much for so long is beyond me.

 

Take a look at my thread on here (it's just below this one) you will see what I have found in all my paper work .

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