Desperate to move from Engage mortgage - need help

[SieveNaive]

We've been with our current lender for many years on a terrible rate and am desperate to leave due to their behaviour etc. But there are various problems and I need some advice.

We had to take a subprime interest only some years ago due to bad credit and low wages. After the crash and affordability tightening we couldn't move elsewhere and the mortgage company have never been interested in helping us, just keen to take us to court. Well finally things are starting to get better and I'm desperate to try and get away from this creeps whether remortgaging or moving. Ideally I'd remortgage for now

Doing some recent research into our finances I've discovered some Restriction K's on our land registry account. I think this is the right term? There are four all in my name only by the looks of them on a joint property. A couple I know nothing about, but the other two would be originally for unsecured loans or credit cards. 

I can't remortgage with current lender even if I could stand it as apparently they are only a servicing company.

Any advice please?

Next - we were on a LIBOR rate +3% interest only mortgage.

Assume there is no come back on the fixing scandal over this? I've been on synthetic LIBOR for awhile but understand that this is now moving to SONIA. However the rate they are giving me is SONIA +0.11% plus the same 3% weighting. Why the extra 0.11%? Seems just gouging me from all sides. 

Over the years we have struggled on enormously high rates and hours being cut several times, they've tried a couple of times to go for repossession and failed.

I recently noticed on a letter from the lender about charges, I've requested a full statement. Looking at this there are about £9000 of fees and charges ranging from litigation solicitor costs to monthly arrears fees ranging from £50 to £27.50.

I was also informed this week that in addition to my normal interest monthly payments I am paying approximately £78pm in additional interest. Well clearly I haven't been exactly as I've just been trying to pay the monthly installment asked for. So mortgage balance is actually rising every month!

We were in arrears for a long while but with new jobs we have now paid over most of this.

Credit report now shows ok as we are under one month of arrears and will have cleared them completely in the next month or two.

Can anything be done on any of this?

Can charges be reclaimed? 

any advice please.

[dx100uk]

and this company is?

litigation fees associated with the repo hearings are sadly legit, but arrears fees are fairgame for reclaiming+the interest they attracted, but i've not seen a success in many years now.

has this mortgage always been owned by the same lender too or have you been passed around. this sounds like a classic mortgage prisoner case.

if you've rest/k's then sadly if you go elsewhere , they will need paying too, unless they are very recent and can be questioned? a rest/k is usually as a result of a civil CCJ claim that you lost, did you ever get any claimforms etc, but simply ignored them?

[SieveNaive]

Yes, we were with another company I can't remember but sold to Engage years ago. I haven't been able to move ever since as this was around the big crash time. 

Mortgage prisoner? Sorry that's a new term to me.

I only know about two of these ResKs. The other two have baffled me as I have not seen any paperwork on them and don't recall what on earth they are for but they are dated probably 8-10 years ago. 

The two I knew about one I sent paperwork back and was trying to negotiate with them and the other one I attended court around 2013 I think and if I remember rightly this was from a credit card starting with EasyMoney but sold on to various.

It's a long time ago but I think they just kept increasing my credit limit at a point where we were struggling financially.

I vaguely recall the judge making a comment about that aspect but can't remember exactly and eventually as we couldn't pay at the time we got the ccj. 

Also you say regarding the charges that you haven't heard of any success. Do you mean that people have gone to court or where people have asked for them to refund some of the charges without a court being involved?

[dx100uk]

yea i thought it might be Engage, probably Kensington or Northern Rock/NRAM before that.

the CCJ's are well old then and not alot you can do sadly

i'd be doing a search on google for mortgage prisoner, that should inform you about everything.

as for the arrears fees etc, as i said we've not seen any recent successful reclaims involving court claims or otherwise, but you'll get the idea why when doing your research. 

sadly you like 10'000 of other people are stuck .

dx

 

[SieveNaive]

They are allowed to charge separate interest on the arrears balance and add this to the fees balance which apparently includes other charges and keeps going up and up every month?

[dx100uk]

thats pretty std to have a separate 'arrears' balance and it being subject to the std interest of the agreement.

there is no harm in writing to Engage stating the arrears fees are disproportionate and unfair and should be refunded/removed, see where they go.