Charges for returning my deeds.

I have just had a letter from my mortgagee, Halifax plc. It states "I
am pleased to advise you that your mortgage is almost repaid. An
amount of £205.54 remains outstanding... A Deeds Dispatch Fee of
£50.00 is also payable... If you do not include this fee, we shall
assume that you do not require the title documents and shall destroy
them following repayment".

It goes on to say: "A repayment administration fee of £175.00 is
payable on the final repayment of your account. This will, however,
be waived if the mortgage has run its full term".

Perhaps some of the members of this group can explain:

How do they justify the Deeds Dispatch Fee of £50.00? It is totally
illogical and petty to say that they are quite happy to dig out the
deeds and destroy them for free but they want £50 to let me have them.
After all, the deeds are my property and I should be able to get them
back for nothing. They cannot possibly say that postage and packing
costs £50!!!!

As far as the repayment administration fee is concerned, I can see the
logic if I were repaying the mortgage very early in that they would
lose interest but, here, we are only talking about an outstanding
balance of £205.

The Office of Fair Trading has been very critical of banks dipping
their bread big time when people were a day late in paying their
credit cards. Do you think the same view would be taken over this £50
Deeds Dispatch Fee?

--
Alasdair.

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

Alasdair wrote:

> I have just had a letter from my mortgagee, Halifax plc. It states "I
> am pleased to advise you that your mortgage is almost repaid. An
> amount of £205.54 remains outstanding... A Deeds Dispatch Fee of
> £50.00 is also payable... If you do not include this fee, we shall
> assume that you do not require the title documents and shall destroy
> them following repayment".

Do you actually need the deeds? They have little practical use these days.

> How do they justify the Deeds Dispatch Fee of £50.00? It is totally
> illogical and petty to say that they are quite happy to dig out the
> deeds and destroy them for free but they want £50 to let me have them.
> After all, the deeds are my property and I should be able to get them
> back for nothing. They cannot possibly say that postage and packing
> costs £50!!!!

Whether they can justify it or not isn't the issue. Were you aware of
this fee at ortgage outset? If they subsequently introduced it were you
notified? Can they advise the date(s) you were notified and how? Bet
they can't - in which case they will almost certainly waive the fee as a
goodwill gesture.

> As far as the repayment administration fee is concerned, I can see the
> logic if I were repaying the mortgage very early in that they would
> lose interest but, here, we are only talking about an outstanding
> balance of £205.

Are you repaying the mortgage early or not? The amount isn't the issue.

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

For Halifax to assume that you don't want the deeds and will destroy them if
you don't sent them £50 is unjustifiable and probably illegal. It is a sad
fact that our legal system is so awful that anyone who has enough clout can
make their own law. Write to them and tell them that you do want the deeds
and that you are prepared to pay a reasonable sum for postage.


"Alasdair" <> wrote in message
news:
|I have just had a letter from my mortgagee, Halifax plc. It states "I
| am pleased to advise you that your mortgage is almost repaid. An
| amount of £205.54 remains outstanding... A Deeds Dispatch Fee of
| £50.00 is also payable... If you do not include this fee, we shall
| assume that you do not require the title documents and shall destroy
| them following repayment".
|
| It goes on to say: "A repayment administration fee of £175.00 is
| payable on the final repayment of your account. This will, however,
| be waived if the mortgage has run its full term".
|
| Perhaps some of the members of this group can explain:
|
| How do they justify the Deeds Dispatch Fee of £50.00? It is totally
| illogical and petty to say that they are quite happy to dig out the
| deeds and destroy them for free but they want £50 to let me have them.
| After all, the deeds are my property and I should be able to get them
| back for nothing. They cannot possibly say that postage and packing
| costs £50!!!!
|
| As far as the repayment administration fee is concerned, I can see the
| logic if I were repaying the mortgage very early in that they would
| lose interest but, here, we are only talking about an outstanding
| balance of £205.
|
| The Office of Fair Trading has been very critical of banks dipping
| their bread big time when people were a day late in paying their
| credit cards. Do you think the same view would be taken over this £50
| Deeds Dispatch Fee?
|
| --
| Alasdair.
|
|

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 08:12:16 +0100, Colin Forrester wrote:

> Alasdair wrote:
>
>> I have just had a letter from my mortgagee, Halifax plc. It states "I
>> am pleased to advise you that your mortgage is almost repaid. An
>> amount of £205.54 remains outstanding... A Deeds Dispatch Fee of
>> £50.00 is also payable... If you do not include this fee, we shall
>> assume that you do not require the title documents and shall destroy
>> them following repayment".
>
> Do you actually need the deeds? They have little practical use these days.

It would depend on the property. I was informed that a solicitor stole the
deeds for my current house because of their historic value. I say "stole"
because someone working in the office at the time heard him exclaim "look
at this, they're handwritten on vellum and must be worth a bomb" and then
what was delivered to the building society was a modern copy.

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

> It would depend on the property. I was informed that a solicitor stole the
> deeds for my current house because of their historic value. I say "stole"
> because someone working in the office at the time heard him exclaim "look
> at this, they're handwritten on vellum and must be worth a bomb" and then
> what was delivered to the building society was a modern copy.

Wasn't this guy was it?
"Randy Benzie"?

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 14:23:14 +0100, wrote:

>> It would depend on the property. I was informed that a solicitor stole the
>> deeds for my current house because of their historic value. I say "stole"
>> because someone working in the office at the time heard him exclaim "look
>> at this, they're handwritten on vellum and must be worth a bomb" and then
>> what was delivered to the building society was a modern copy.
>
> Wasn't this guy was it?
> "Randy Benzie"?

Hmm, I wonder. The solicitor in question was from Hampshire, and had a
reputation for considering that anything included with the deeds was "his"
by right, antique keys, address presses etc.

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

"Stickems." <> wrote in message
news:LyShg.376$
> For Halifax to assume that you don't want the deeds and will destroy them
if
> you don't sent them £50 is unjustifiable and probably illegal. It is a sad
> fact that our legal system is so awful that anyone who has enough clout
can
> make their own law. Write to them and tell them that you do want the deeds
> and that you are prepared to pay a reasonable sum for postage.

Does your mortgage contract say anything about a sum for returning the
deeds? If not, tell them that you never agreed to pay for the return of the
deeds and they are yours and you want them back F.O.C.

Marcus

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

In uk.finance, Colin Forrester wrote:
>Alasdair wrote:
>
>> I have just had a letter from my mortgagee, Halifax plc. It states "I
>> am pleased to advise you that your mortgage is almost repaid. An
>> amount of £205.54 remains outstanding... A Deeds Dispatch Fee of
>> £50.00 is also payable... If you do not include this fee, we shall
>> assume that you do not require the title documents and shall destroy
>> them following repayment".
>
>Do you actually need the deeds? They have little practical use these days.

Interesting. We just got our deeds from the bank and were considering
having them put in safe storage. Should we not bother? The oldest
documents are hand-written on vellum; the newest indicate that the house
and garden are registered at the Land Registry (two separate
registrations). And there's a whole lot of other bumf about previous
residents' applications for planning permission for extensions and
outbuildings, etc.

--
Mike Barnes

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

Colin Forrester <> wrote
>Alasdair wrote:
>
>> I have just had a letter from my mortgagee, Halifax plc. It states "I
>> am pleased to advise you that your mortgage is almost repaid. An
>> amount of £205.54 remains outstanding... A Deeds Dispatch Fee of
>> £50.00 is also payable... If you do not include this fee, we shall
>> assume that you do not require the title documents and shall destroy
>> them following repayment".
>
>Do you actually need the deeds? They have little practical use these days.
>
I made that comment to a solicitor who handed over a conveyance for the
purchase of part of my garden recently. I had been forced to pay for
the return of the house deeds when a Rent Charge company (Compton),
invoked a clause which forced us to buy the rent charge or insure with
their 'approved' insurers. The building Society required me to
insure via them, in return for safe keeping of the deeds.

So I went online and re-insured with the approved company (Zurich), and
recovered the deeds, which cost me about £75 after a refund of £20 on
the insurance.

The insurance cost me less than half of what the B.S. were billing me
for, and with better cover!

I still have the deeds here, plus the other conveyance.

Back to the solicitor, who admitted that most paper deeds were now
redundant, but said that in any kind of dispute, the Courts "like to see
a bit of paper".
--
Gordon Harris

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 17:24:35 +0100, Steve Firth <%steve%@malloc.co.uk>
wrote:
>
>Hmm, I wonder. The solicitor in question was from Hampshire, and had a
>reputation for considering that anything included with the deeds was "his"
>by right, antique keys, address presses etc.
Ashby?

Tiddy Ogg.

Re: Charges for returning my deeds.

On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 22:02:41 +0100, Tiddy Ogg wrote:

> On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 17:24:35 +0100, Steve Firth <%steve%@malloc.co.uk>
> wrote:
>>
>>Hmm, I wonder. The solicitor in question was from Hampshire, and had a
>>reputation for considering that anything included with the deeds was "his"
>>by right, antique keys, address presses etc.
> Ashby?

It would of course be foolish for me to give the solicitor's name in
public, solicitors being noted for their litigious nature.