Mortgage borrowers facing higher charges after bank’s blunder
By Stephen Hunt, 26th July 2010
Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank are to impose increased
payments upon its mortgage customers to make up a shortfall
resulting from their own blunder.
Many variable and tracker rate mortgage customers were underpaid
when the banks wrongly calculated some repayments by incorrectly
applying interest rates to their accounts.
Consequently the banks suffered a considerable shortfall.
However, rather than paying for its own mistake, the banks,
which are both owned by National Australia Bank, are punishing
their customers by enforcing higher payments. Some customers may
end up paying up to £200 a month more.
The stance of the banks has been fiercely criticised by mortgage
experts.
''It's a shame the bank hasn't decided to waive the shortfalls
as a gesture of goodwill, particularly as the borrowers have been
underpaying through no fault of their own", said Melanie Bien,
director of mortgage broker Private Finance.
She implores affected customers to contact their bank and to
take their case to the Financial Ombudsman if they are unhappy with
the response they receive.
There may be grounds for a compensation claim if there was no
way that the customer could have known that their repayments were
incorrect, or if they were given misleading feedback or
correspondence from their bank.
Peter Vicary-Smith from Which? made further calls for customers
to stand up for their rights.
"It is unacceptable that customers who have been paying their
mortgage in good faith should suddenly find they are behind with
their repayments.
"Yorkshire and Clydesdale must treat affected customers fairly
and ensure that no one finds themselves in financial difficulty due
to this error.
"Any customer who feels they are being treated unfairly should
complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service."
If you feel that your mortgage repayments may
be excessive, you could benefit from reading our free Mis-Sold
Mortgages guide.
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