Hello everyone,
Me again....
Back in July 2008 I was in the process of buying my home with my ex. We were buying it as part of an open market home-buy scheme which would mean the Government owned 33% of the house.
We were in the process of taking a mortgage with HBOS. For reasons that will become clear later HBOS assessed my income as being enough to afford the house by myself.
So, I needed to check some things that confused me in the mortgage documents they sent through in relation to payment holidays, my ex at the time wasn't very secure in her job and if we were to buy a house together I wanted to make sure we could get a payment holiday if we needed one temporarily.
In the chain of emails attached you will see a really important conversation between me and the Mortgage advisor about being able to take a payment holiday - she said "YES" it would apply to us, even though we had this other Government thing. So on that basis we took the mortgage with HBOS on a fixed rate for 5 years.
The reason we did the fixed rate was because we were secure, the payments were known, the budget was set and we knew our options based on the advice of the mortgage advisor at HBOS.
In November 2012 I had a bit of a blip in that one temporary contract ended and a permanent job started, I was also having to care for my younger sister so was expecting a drop in income for 2 months. So I called HBOS - to be told I wasn't eligible for a payment holiday because I had a 2nd mortgage on the house, I questioned this with them as I was told in writing that I'd be eligible (very annoyed).
Anyway, I told them this would be for a short while as I knew a) I was getting a much better paid role b) was getting money in April. Which was all true, the arrears I accrued I paid off in one lump sum.
I'm annoyed because, had the mortgage advisor not told me the things she did in our conversations, some in the e-mail attached I wouldn't have;
a) taken a mortgage with my ex due to her job instability, I would have budgeted myself to buy the house which at the time I was able to do.
b) wouldn't have taken the mortgage on a fixed rate at 5% (ish), the reason being we did that because everything was sealed up, we knew what we'd be doing and paying so decided on balance we'd fix the mortgage.
We talked about if they weren't able to offer us securities we wouldn't fix in for a period so that we could change if we found another lender that met our needs.
Ok so HBOS allowed me 2-3 months of nil payments to assist me during the blip but that this wasn't a payment holiday, it was something else they called it so it showed on my credit file as arrears.
So my issues now are;
a) I am unable to take my ex off the mortgage because these were registered from Feb - April 2013.
b) I paid a higher rate of fixed interest because of their dodgy advice.
I've complained and I can show you my letters which I thought explained it well to the bank but they won't budge, they've offered me £100 for the "unfortunate" advice of their agent at the time.
What annoys me is that I was 22 at the time and I read through everything to check it all out to cover myself, I questioned as much as possible to make sure I understood it, the bank misled me and yet they won't uphold my complaint.
Does this all make sense? Is there anything I can do?
Thanks muchly for all the support (I promise I don't have it in for Lloyds Banking Group......)
Me again....
Back in July 2008 I was in the process of buying my home with my ex. We were buying it as part of an open market home-buy scheme which would mean the Government owned 33% of the house.
We were in the process of taking a mortgage with HBOS. For reasons that will become clear later HBOS assessed my income as being enough to afford the house by myself.
So, I needed to check some things that confused me in the mortgage documents they sent through in relation to payment holidays, my ex at the time wasn't very secure in her job and if we were to buy a house together I wanted to make sure we could get a payment holiday if we needed one temporarily.
In the chain of emails attached you will see a really important conversation between me and the Mortgage advisor about being able to take a payment holiday - she said "YES" it would apply to us, even though we had this other Government thing. So on that basis we took the mortgage with HBOS on a fixed rate for 5 years.
The reason we did the fixed rate was because we were secure, the payments were known, the budget was set and we knew our options based on the advice of the mortgage advisor at HBOS.
In November 2012 I had a bit of a blip in that one temporary contract ended and a permanent job started, I was also having to care for my younger sister so was expecting a drop in income for 2 months. So I called HBOS - to be told I wasn't eligible for a payment holiday because I had a 2nd mortgage on the house, I questioned this with them as I was told in writing that I'd be eligible (very annoyed).
Anyway, I told them this would be for a short while as I knew a) I was getting a much better paid role b) was getting money in April. Which was all true, the arrears I accrued I paid off in one lump sum.
I'm annoyed because, had the mortgage advisor not told me the things she did in our conversations, some in the e-mail attached I wouldn't have;
a) taken a mortgage with my ex due to her job instability, I would have budgeted myself to buy the house which at the time I was able to do.
b) wouldn't have taken the mortgage on a fixed rate at 5% (ish), the reason being we did that because everything was sealed up, we knew what we'd be doing and paying so decided on balance we'd fix the mortgage.
We talked about if they weren't able to offer us securities we wouldn't fix in for a period so that we could change if we found another lender that met our needs.
Ok so HBOS allowed me 2-3 months of nil payments to assist me during the blip but that this wasn't a payment holiday, it was something else they called it so it showed on my credit file as arrears.
So my issues now are;
a) I am unable to take my ex off the mortgage because these were registered from Feb - April 2013.
b) I paid a higher rate of fixed interest because of their dodgy advice.
I've complained and I can show you my letters which I thought explained it well to the bank but they won't budge, they've offered me £100 for the "unfortunate" advice of their agent at the time.
What annoys me is that I was 22 at the time and I read through everything to check it all out to cover myself, I questioned as much as possible to make sure I understood it, the bank misled me and yet they won't uphold my complaint.
Does this all make sense? Is there anything I can do?
Thanks muchly for all the support (I promise I don't have it in for Lloyds Banking Group......)
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