Nationwide mortgages - can they be trusted?

*snip sequence of events*

You haven't mentioned how long ago the changes took place, but I guess that's not so important. They would have needed a signature to change the mortgage term but perhaps you signed an incorrect document when you took the mortgage out?

My best suggestion would be to log a complaint with them regarding the errors and insist they are investigated. The tricky bit is that you aren't financially out of pocket, as the monthly payment you were making was correct for the mortgage you had (albeit the term was not what you wanted) - they haven't really made any money out of you or lost the money. In terms of what to do next, you could request that you are compensated for the calls & delays/errors, but my guess is that you just want to move your mortgage away from them given your experience.

In your position, I'd request that they refund any fees you paid them for arranging the mortgage (on the basis that they made a complete dog's dinner of it) and/or at the very least insist that they waive any charges for moving the mortgage away from them (redemption fees & any early repayment fees associated with the Tracker).

Be aware they will probably argue that you received all the paperwork confirming the mortgage term etc when you took it out (assuming that's where the error was made).

HTH & good luck

Vic

As has been stated, make an official complaint to the compliance officer at the nationwide. Set out the story as concisely, but accurately, as possible, and let them make an official repsonse. Once you haven't solved something with the first call, always best to complain. I had this with Woolwich three years ago, when my wife was left off my re-mortgage. After months of arguing (in writing) with various idiots, I wrote to the top dog. It still took months to resolve, but they put it the way I wanted without any cost to me.

John

If you post the amount outstanding on the mortgage, and the interest rate, I'll work out what the repayments should be (unless Ronald beats me to it).

Nationwide allow overpayments of up to 500 per month on their tracker mortgages, so you could always overpay the appropriate amount to keep you on track to repay it after the 15 years, until you get it sorted.

I wouldn't blame you for wanting to move the mortgage elsewhere after their cockups, but unless you can get a better deal elsewhere it would be like cutting off you nose to spite your face.

In message , biog writes

But in your original post you said "He said we have never 15 years mortgage : it was always 20 years. "

This could be the source of the confusion. You DO have a 20 year mortgage, and always have had. The mortgagee will still regard it as a

20 year jobbie even when there is only a year to go. I think that between you and NW there may have been some confusion between the mortgage 'term' (20) and 'years to go' (15).

As far as NW go, I have found them always to be straightforward and honest to deal with.

What I meant by this is that we have a 20 year mortgage with the Nati> the local branch manager

I meant of course the term left to run > A letter arrived from Nationwide saying that the term of our endowment

I meant of course the term of our mortgage. The endowment had already been replaced with repayment.

Now the above shows how easy it is for one emotional person, writing this with no one else checking, to make mistakes. But you would not expect this from a professional organisation. I apologise for any confusion I have caused.

You're getting too wound up by this "term" issue.

The term really is not a big deal. You can shorten the term to whatever you want (or can afford) by making overpayments to your mortgage account. I have a 25 year mortgage with Nationwide but I'm going to pay it off well before then.

They've screwed up by getting the term wrong, but you can correct that yourselves until they sort it out.

First of all you need to work out what you monthly payments *should* be.

The repayment formula is LI/(1-(1+I)^-N)).

L is the amount you currently owe. I is the *monthly* interest rate (eg if the rate is 4.79%, I is 0.399% 0.00399) N is the number of *months* left in your term (eg for 15 years, N0)

So if you owe 100,000 and the rate is 4.79% and you want to pay it off in 15 years, then you need to pay 779.79 per month.

If they've worked it out on a 20 year term, they'll want 648.30 a month. So you need to pay an extra 131.49 a month.

You should recalculate every time the rate changes, or you make a big overpayment, or you miss an overpayment, make a withdrawal etc.

What I do is just pay as much extra as I can afford each month (you can reclaim overpayments if you need the money back). You then have the flexibility to make a big overpayment in a good month and a smaller one (or nothing) in a month when finances are tight. As long as you average approx the extra you've worked out then you'll be on track to pay it off by when you want to.

Bear in mind that the Nationwide tracker product only allows overpayments of up to 500 each month without penalty so don't overpay by more than this.

From my experience Natiowide's admin and staff training is appalling. They gave me incorrect information and took over six months to sort out my mortgage transfer.

On the other hand they did offer a small compensation for this.

Mark

"Andy Pandy" wrote

It might be :-

If the OP went along, asked "I want a 15 year (remaining) term - what will the payments be?" and the lender replied "That'll be 600 per month" - with the OP thinking "600pm for 15 yrs ain't bad" but the lender thinking "hehe,

600pm for 20yrs".

The OP might be comparing that quote with another quote from Lender2, who had quoted 650pm (for 15 years remaining) - but who might have quoted only

550pm for 20 years remaining. In other words, the OP may have been lured into a more expensive loan because of the confusion....

"Tim" wrote

Surely anyone that thick would lack the wit to shop around to begin with. They'd be paying their lender's SVR for the entire mortgage term.

Yes we compared the Nationwide's quote with another lenders quote. And Nationwide's quote was a bit cheaper but not dramatically so to arouse our suspicions. You'd think this would be blindingly obvious on the quote itself but it was not. Besides you provide the amount and years input and it is their output, monthly payments, that you focus in on.

Nationwide's quote was cheaper because they only calculated it based on the existing repayement mortgate which is not what we asked for : we wanted it based on the existing repayment plus the new repayment coming from surrender of the endowment, plus we wanted to pay 10k off of the mortgage.

The quote was for the remaining 15 years. Its only when the statements came in that we saw they had changed the remaining term to 20 years. They have said they have changed this back to 15 years - with an increase in our repayments.

I am in no one suggesting this is a scam just a cockup.

No one has answered whether the Nationwide can legally increase the remaining term without the customers knowledge or consent.

They can't, but since as you say it was a cockup, they didn't do it deliberately but by mistake. The central question now is whether their quote was binding, given that it was founded on a mistake. I don't think it would be.

If the new payments turn out to be uncompetitive, I don't think you can require them to give you a special deal interest rate discount for life, the best you could get is that they will put you in the same position as you'd be in had you opted for your second choice alternative lender from the outset. So they should let you transfer to the other lender, paying any fees involved, and not charging you any exit fees.

You must have signed something? Otherwise it would not have come into force, presumably?

No we did not sign anything that extended our mortgage. It's simply incredible isn't it.

All we signed was an agreement to go on a 2 year tracker - no mention of the overall amount or mortgage years remaining.

Thank heaven we spotted this now. Can you imagine discovering years later that we have 5 extra years more mortgage to pay!

Do you have copies of *all* the paperwork? I would have thought there must be reference to the term in there somewhere?

I have just looked at my paperwork (diff institution to yours) , there is a 'confirmation of discussion' form which mentions the term and a mortgage offer form which has it in as well. This was for a mortgage xfer from one lender to another, but I'd have thought you must have something similar? Otherwise, they have cocked up royally in not giving those forms:-)

I think you just need to keep hassling them. They'll probably put it right eventually. Try their official complaints procedure - that should get their attention.

As I posted before they made a total ****-up of my mortgage when I tried to borrow more money and extend the term. They took over 6 months to sort out the mess.

Mark.