PITA Charges and Fee's

Teledude · 1 Feb 2013 at 12:26

Sometimes banks really make my blood boil :mad:

£500 to value our new house for mortgage purposes?! :confused:

The estate agents valued it for the vendors.
I valued it from the value and offered.
They accepted - everyone is happy and we all agree.

Yet the bank want £500 now to spend 15 mins there doing the same thing :mad:

Jono8 · 1 Feb 2013 at 12:27

"so you would like to renew your tenancy,great. Please wait while i press print from this document that contains your contract....there we go, that will be £100 please"

ntg · 1 Feb 2013 at 12:48

Teledude said:
Sometimes banks really make my blood boil

£500 to value our new house for mortgage purposes?!

The estate agents valued it for the vendors.
I valued it from the value and offered.
They accepted - everyone is happy and we all agree.

Yet the bank want £500 now to spend 15 mins there doing the same thing

saves the bank from forking out for properties that are not worth the price people want to sell them for.

also saves them from summy realtors and puppet buyers.

yer_averagejoe · 1 Feb 2013 at 13:44

ntg said:
saves the bank from forking out for properties that are not worth the price people want to sell them for.

also saves them from summy realtors and puppet buyers.

Sure, it's worth the bank doing this.. but it doesn't cost them £500. The mortgage you take with a bank is worth a lot to them over it's lifetime; you'd think the bank would be happy to waive fees like this, or at least not take the ****

wnb · 1 Feb 2013 at 13:50

Teledude said:
Sometimes banks really make my blood boil

£500 to value our new house for mortgage purposes?!

The estate agents valued it for the vendors.
I valued it from the value and offered.
They accepted - everyone is happy and we all agree.

Yet the bank want £500 now to spend 15 mins there doing the same thing

I'm getting my building valued by the bank for a loan, they are charging £210 to value it. The building is a care home, makes your valuations seem very expensive.

ci_newman · 1 Feb 2013 at 13:53

'Tis the norm I'm afraid!

Destination · 1 Feb 2013 at 13:59

Uually banks refund the charges for the valuation, in my experience anyway.

jaybee · 1 Feb 2013 at 14:03

Jono8 said:
"so you would like to renew your tenancy,great. Please wait while i press print from this document that contains your contract....there we go, that will be £100 please"

This annoys me so much I actually wrote to my letting agent to ask what the fee covered. All I got back was some BS about "Admin" charges. I expected nothing less. Still annoy me though. They must use a printer cased in Gold with caviar based ink. The rate of pay for this "fee" and work involved, must be on a ratio of £100 per minute. A minute is being generous there, because last time I searched for a document and clicked my mouse to print, I could do it in less. So that's £6000 per hour equivalent. I can see why even with their **** poor service they manage to stay in business.

Another one is when you get letting agents and/or landlords trying to hold onto deposits after a tenancy ends. A friend of mine had an awful experience (written about it before on here) where they charged him over £100 for a new washing machine control knob (literally a white piece of round plastic with no markings or mechanics or electrics inside it).

Those same people also charged him about £200 for "general clean" after he rented and used cleaning products for an entire weekend before moving out. I did try to warn him that spending an hour cleaning the house will be the same as a day, since if the agent wants to be a ****, they'll be a ****.

Teledude · 1 Feb 2013 at 14:13

wnb said:
I'm getting my building valued by the bank for a loan, they are charging £210 to value it. The building is a care home, makes your valuations seem very expensive.

Its the halifax if its makes any difference?!

And as someone above said - I don't mind them doing it - its the charge for it thats overly steep!

tom_e · 1 Feb 2013 at 14:19

Jono8 said:
"so you would like to renew your tenancy,great. Please wait while i press print from this document that contains your contract....there we go, that will be £100 please"

£300 non refundable fee for them to run a credit check for my new place, easy money if they decide you fail based on their check list which they're never going to let you see.
Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age.
Anything involving housing is going to get you bent over one way or another because they know you have no choice.

Woden · 1 Feb 2013 at 14:26

tom_e said:
£300 non refundable fee for them to run a credit check for my new place, easy money if they decide you fail based on their check list which they're never going to let you see.
Maybe I'm just getting cynical in my old age.
Anything involving housing is going to get you bent over one way or another because they know you have no choice.

I am going to buy a house, put it up to let but then reject every £300 non-refundable credit check. I'm not even going to bother checking. Easily pay for the mortgage with just 2-3 applications a month.

It annoys me so much, any time someone can charge an admin fee, its so overinflated its ridiculous.
Ryan Air has based a whole business model on it. Reserve your seat, that's a fee.
Take a bag, that's a fee.
Dont take a bag, thats a fee.
Check-in, thats a fee.
Pay your fees, thats a fee.

ince · 1 Feb 2013 at 14:29

in this day and age do you really think the banks can afford to take other peoples view on value.

pay up or pay cash.

FARGO · 1 Feb 2013 at 14:32

Jono8 said:
"so you would like to renew your tenancy,great. Please wait while i press print from this document that contains your contract....there we go, that will be £100 please"

Agree. Each year I walk to the estate agent on my way to or from work to hand over a signed piece of paper and pay £90 for the privilege.

tom_e · 1 Feb 2013 at 14:34

FARGO said:
Agree. Each year I walk to the estate agent on my way to or from work to hand over a signed piece of paper and pay £90 for the privilege.

Luckily our new landlord is only using them at the beginning to get us in then we'll have nothing more to do with them so fingers crossed there'll be no stupid fees for renewing.

FARGO · 1 Feb 2013 at 14:54

tom_e said:
Luckily our new landlord is only using them at the beginning to get us in then we'll have nothing more to do with them so fingers crossed there'll be no stupid fees for renewing.

It's ridiculous as the estate agent doesn't have anything to do with us. We contact our landlady if there are any issues.

malfunkshun · 1 Feb 2013 at 15:18

Teledude said:
Sometimes banks really make my blood boil

£500 to value our new house for mortgage purposes?!

The estate agents valued it for the vendors.
I valued it from the value and offered.
They accepted - everyone is happy and we all agree.

Yet the bank want £500 now to spend 15 mins there doing the same thing

Can you try another bank? or is the total spend including the mortgage competitive?

"so you would like to renew your tenancy,great. Please wait while i press print from this document that contains your contract....there we go, that will be £100 please"

Why bother? you get nothing from it beyond the bill for the agents fees, after the original 6 months AST the landlord can issue a section 21 notice to evict in exactly the same way as if the agreement had lapsed into the rolling monthly contract (ie 2 months notice), since there is only protection for the first six months from when the property was occupied under the original AST.

ntg · 1 Feb 2013 at 15:21

yer_averagejoe said:
Sure, it's worth the bank doing this.. but it doesn't cost them £500. The mortgage you take with a bank is worth a lot to them over it's lifetime; you'd think the bank would be happy to waive fees like this, or at least not take the ****

Not all people keep their mortgages with the same bank forever, in fact quite a few look for deals whenever their fixed 5 year (for example) runs out and switch. There is no guarantee for the bank that you'll stay with them.

In order for them to offer a competitive rate they snipe you upfront with those fees that you don't think much of (in the grand mortgage scheme of costs). It also makes it less appealing to move your mortgage to another provider if you have to pay fees every time (not valuation, but setting up mortgage fees and other rubbish fees).

Also, if the valuation fee was much less, there would be people trying to game the banks to see how they can scam them, as the cost would be low. At £500 if fairly prohibitive, so you don't waste their time as well.

jaybee · 1 Feb 2013 at 15:26

malfunkshun said:
Can you try another bank? or is the total spend including the mortgage competitive?

Why bother? you get nothing from it beyond the bill for the agents fees, after the original 6 months AST the landlord can issue a section 21 notice to evict in exactly the same way as if the agreement had lapsed into the rolling monthly contract (ie 2 months notice), since there is only protection for the first six months from when the property was occupied under the original AST.

What's an AST? I have always wondered this, i.e. Why I pay each year for them to "renew my tenancy for a year". It's not really renewing it for a year at all is it? The Landlord can still evict me with 2 months notice as can I if I want to move? Can I simply refuse to sign and pay it? What would be the likely response?
"You have to if you want to remain in the property sir" ?

Ok then

tom_e · 1 Feb 2013 at 15:32

jaybee said:
What's an AST? I have always wondered this, i.e. Why I pay each year for them to "renew my tenancy for a year". It's not really renewing it for a year at all is it? The Landlord can still evict me with 2 months notice as can I if I want to move? Can I simply refuse to sign and pay it? What would be the likely response?
"You have to if you want to remain in the property sir" ?

Ok then

Assured Short hold Tenancy.

malfunkshun · 1 Feb 2013 at 15:34

AST is assured shorthold tenancy. Now the basic version is that when you first move in you sign an AST and it is usually 6 months (can be more, can be less but it doesn't matter). So you move in Jan 1st, on Feb 1st the landlord issues a section 21 notice to evict. You object/refuse etc and he goes to court, unless you have breached the AST in some way the court will not usually order you to leave the property until after 6 months have passed.
If your original AST is 12 months then you still only get the 6 months protection, this also applies if you renew every 6 months etc.
I honestly don't know if you can be evicted for refusing to renew. I do know that the contract becomes a rolling monthly affair. Perhaps there is a clause in the original AST that states that you must renew, in which case I would have to look into the fairness of such a clause since it would only serve to tie you to more agents fees as you would be able to provide 1 months notice to quit either way.
Personally I would refuse, then refuse to comply with the section 21 notice, if that is how things progressed, and leave it for the court to decide if it is unfair to be expected to renew if you are in otherwise good standing with regards to the contract.

Anyway, this is well off topic