Before I give the full details, I'm sorry to give you a little bit of history to the issue that my wife and I have.
2005 - I moved into a new house with my Mother and Father. Unfortunately, at the time of moving, my father couldn't get the mortgage for the house due to ill health. He therefore asked if it was ok to put in my name whilst he recovered. Unfortunately in 2006 he passed away, leaving me with the house, bills and my mother to look after. At the time, I never had experience of dealing with mortgage's and other stuff like that. I just signed on the dotted line. (Although under due stress from grieving, I have now come to learn that this would have been mistake number one).
January 2008 - My fianc! and I decided to do the grown up stuff (after she had moved in in 2007) and properly take over the mortgage of the house. My bank at the time booked in an appointment and we had a chat with the mortgage advisor. they explained that 'something' was happening with the house market and that they expect the mortgage rates to increase within the next month. They therefore suggested a 10 year fixed rate re-mortgage so that we definitely knew the exact amount we would be paying each month. 5.9% based on a £108,000 mortgage against a house worth £135,000. To make sure we also got to seal the deal, the Package account I was paying for on my personal account (taken out because I was told it was the only way to get the loan at the time), was to be transferred over so that the interest rate was kept down on the mortgage. (Mistake number two I've since learnt).
Still being wet behind the ears, and not knowing our stuff about mortgage's, we never had dealings before previously, and thought that as we were speaking to a mortgage advisor, they knew their stuff. After all, this is the bank I've been dealing with since I was five. They wouldn't pull the wool over my eyes (mistake no 3).
We followed the advise and took the ten year fixed rate. A month later, and the crash of mortgage rates happened, the credit crunch hit and a financial crisis was happening before us. We didn't want to believe it, and sort of expected that the rates would increase up and above what were were expected to pay, as righting advised by the bank.
2013 - Now we feel we have been taken for a ride and that every time we've been to the bank to discuss this, they won't budge. We think we've been given duff advise, and that they led us to take the 10 year fixed rate, and mis-selling us the mortgage based on the information the advisor gave us at the time. It seems that we've been held by the short and curlies all the way through this nightmare. We don't know what to do now. Everyone else seems to be getting a bit of free reign on their mortgage re-payments whilst we are struggling to make sure we have enough in the bank to cover our running costs.
Can anyone advise as to what we can do and if we can do anything about it? I feel so cheated by the under handed way we've been handled by all this and now that they've got our money, any cries for help in changing this situation involve them snubbing us out, or asking to pay the redemption fee of nearly £6,000 to get out of the mortgage. I was made redundant 2011, and now work as an agency worker. Therefore, I can't even get a re-mortgage to cover the cost of the redemption fee to simply change it over.
Final Note - Althoguh I understand this isn't under the same sort of category. How will this affect me as well if I want to re-claim mis-sold Package Account charges and PPI?
Any help or advise, either good or bad would be much apprecitaed.
Ian and Beccy
2005 - I moved into a new house with my Mother and Father. Unfortunately, at the time of moving, my father couldn't get the mortgage for the house due to ill health. He therefore asked if it was ok to put in my name whilst he recovered. Unfortunately in 2006 he passed away, leaving me with the house, bills and my mother to look after. At the time, I never had experience of dealing with mortgage's and other stuff like that. I just signed on the dotted line. (Although under due stress from grieving, I have now come to learn that this would have been mistake number one).
January 2008 - My fianc! and I decided to do the grown up stuff (after she had moved in in 2007) and properly take over the mortgage of the house. My bank at the time booked in an appointment and we had a chat with the mortgage advisor. they explained that 'something' was happening with the house market and that they expect the mortgage rates to increase within the next month. They therefore suggested a 10 year fixed rate re-mortgage so that we definitely knew the exact amount we would be paying each month. 5.9% based on a £108,000 mortgage against a house worth £135,000. To make sure we also got to seal the deal, the Package account I was paying for on my personal account (taken out because I was told it was the only way to get the loan at the time), was to be transferred over so that the interest rate was kept down on the mortgage. (Mistake number two I've since learnt).
Still being wet behind the ears, and not knowing our stuff about mortgage's, we never had dealings before previously, and thought that as we were speaking to a mortgage advisor, they knew their stuff. After all, this is the bank I've been dealing with since I was five. They wouldn't pull the wool over my eyes (mistake no 3).
We followed the advise and took the ten year fixed rate. A month later, and the crash of mortgage rates happened, the credit crunch hit and a financial crisis was happening before us. We didn't want to believe it, and sort of expected that the rates would increase up and above what were were expected to pay, as righting advised by the bank.
2013 - Now we feel we have been taken for a ride and that every time we've been to the bank to discuss this, they won't budge. We think we've been given duff advise, and that they led us to take the 10 year fixed rate, and mis-selling us the mortgage based on the information the advisor gave us at the time. It seems that we've been held by the short and curlies all the way through this nightmare. We don't know what to do now. Everyone else seems to be getting a bit of free reign on their mortgage re-payments whilst we are struggling to make sure we have enough in the bank to cover our running costs.
Can anyone advise as to what we can do and if we can do anything about it? I feel so cheated by the under handed way we've been handled by all this and now that they've got our money, any cries for help in changing this situation involve them snubbing us out, or asking to pay the redemption fee of nearly £6,000 to get out of the mortgage. I was made redundant 2011, and now work as an agency worker. Therefore, I can't even get a re-mortgage to cover the cost of the redemption fee to simply change it over.
Final Note - Althoguh I understand this isn't under the same sort of category. How will this affect me as well if I want to re-claim mis-sold Package Account charges and PPI?
Any help or advise, either good or bad would be much apprecitaed.
Ian and Beccy