*ANYONE WHO HAS CHANGED MORTGAGE LENDERS IN THE LAST 6 YEARS MUST READ THIS*

[emmatomATO]

If you have changed mortgage lenders in the last 6 years you would have been charged an exit fee.

This should have been £50 but many banks/building societies charged up to £300. This has now been officially declared out of order and a phone call to your previous dealer will give you back anything you paid over the £50 plus interest.

It was that Martin money man on GMTV this morning who said all this and would you believe, one phone call to the Woolwich and I'm £100 + better off.

No iffs, no butts (like reclaiming bank charges), they just have to give it to you.

Tell everyone - I'm all for the small guy getting justice over the big ones!

Is it just for changing companies, or for also changing plans etc?

When we moved recently our anticipated £250 fee reduced considerably without us having to ask.

Great thread

It means fees/penalties for exiting a mortgage. I don't think it matters whether you took out the new product with the same provider; you have still exited one mortgage to enter another, so jofeb04 if you are in this situation, I would make a claim. I am in this situation; we bought out of one fixed rate deal to take another better one, so I am going to phone them tomorrow.

Yes cat, you'e right, it's not just a set £50 thingy. Apparantly in the small print of your mortgage contract it would have said 'we will charge you x amount if you leave this mortgage' (laymans interpretation!) and the x amount should be reasonable.

But then in the very, very small print they added ' we have the right to actually charge whatever we want' and it is this last bit that has been declared wrong.

And yes, it was literally one call to the Woolwich. They had a special department set up to deal with this. I didn't even know my old account number, they just needed to know full name and address of the property the mortgage related to.

Apparently you could have claimed from the start of this year but it was the GMTV thingy today that got the phones hot.

bump for morning crew.

I've just checked mine - Cheltenham & Glos charged me "closing Administration charge" of £180.00. I'm going to ring them to see if I can get the £130 back.

thank you should get 100 back

tha hfx give you the difference between wht the quoted exit fee was when you started the mortgage and what you paid when you excited

Brilliant. Let us know Mrsrecycle how you get on.

thank yoiu for this - we remortgaged about 3 or 4 years ago. will have a look
cheers

Oh no I haven't kept any details of previous mortgage lenders do you think I would still be ok just to ring? not sure how much I was charged.

Contacted previous lender Allince and Leicester I was charged £295. They have said that as they have had a large quantity of calls over this matter that they were just writing to people who complained letting them know if they are entitled to anything back. Fobbed off came to mind...however I shall call them back in a couple of weeks if I haven't received a letter.

Have a look at Martin Lewis's advice on www.moneysavingexpert.com. He tells you exactly what to do and don't be fobbed off upsadaisy. They Have to give you your money.

yoiu must must must do this if you have changed your mortgage providers in the last few years!!

I ahve just made a phonecall - simple as that, they weren't interested in a letter - and I'll have over £200 coming my waay in a few days
easy peasy money - they are refunding the entire amound
yipee

keep this bumped, there m,ust be hundred of other mnetters in this situation

Even if you changed mortgage because you moved house?

yes - if you've left one mortgage provider and gone to antoher one - we remortgaged, didn't move house, but switched providers to do so

How do you know what you were charged? We swtiched mortgages twice in teh last 6 years but I can't find any details for what we were charged.

Hmm we moved 18 months ago and changed from Skipton building society to Halifax, I know we were charged an exit fee but not sure how much.

Will tray and give them a call. Fingers crossed!!

Just called them, it was very easy. They hav elogged it as a complaint, they confirmed I paid a £175 exit fee and said they have passed it to customer services who will deal with it.

Grate thread!

gobbledigook, if you don't have the records the company shoudl still have all that info? (is it not lurking in a dustly box somewhere? haha) should be fine with your name and the address at the time
I jsut have to give the mortgage reference number, my name and date of birth - didn't have to go into details of what the exit fee was
def worth a try

Dh has just found out RBS charged us £225 last year so they've given us details of where to write.

Just need to get on to the other one from a few years ago!

Yippee, we could be getting a windfall!!