IT bank error means I have a capital shortfall on my mortgage account of 40,000

Lorry

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In 2004 I took out an investment mortgage with a bank who is currently in the process of exiting the Irish market. I signed up to the their letter of offer (mortgage contract) whereby I would pay interest only for the first 5 years and then the mortgage repayments would revert to capital and interest for the remaining 20 years. On the mortgage contract it states that the estimated total amount repayable is €360,000. I signed up to pay my mortgage by direct debit and I expected the Bank to debit my account with the correct amount as the repayments fell due.

In 2013 I got a letter out of the blue stating that the mortgage did not revert to capital and interest in 2009 owing to an IT systems error and to ensure that I met my mortgage commitments are per my mortgage contract my repayments would increase by over 100% from €860 to €1,700. For the last 5 years I have paid almost 45,000 in interest only payments. As a result of the Banks error I have calculated that the estimated total amount repayable will rise to €405,000 because of their error. While I understand that the total amount repayable and the cost of credit can change on foot of interest rate changes I do not think it is acceptable that the total amount repayable increases because of their systems error.

As far as I am concerned I signed up to pay interest only for 5 years and capital and interest for the remaining 20 years. Because of the Banks system errors they have not applied my mortgage repayments to my mortgage account as per the letter of offer. Surely its reasonable to expect that the Bank should retrospectively apply the 45,000 I have paid over the last 5 years to my mortgage account to pay off capital and interest as per the mortgage contract.

At the moment the Bank are stating that I have a capital shortfall of 40,000 but if they applied the money I have paid corrctly to my account the outstanding balance would reduce by approximately 30,000. I have had numerous discussions with the Bank over their error but all they have offered is a term extension and in this case the total amount repayable will rise to 448,000. Any advice would be appreciated? Thanks
 
Its a different question! Read the full post! the mortgage repayments were not applied correctly in accordance with the mortgage contract!
 
So you didn't notice that in 2009 that the amount of monthly payments were not increased ? Yeah. it's all the banks fault, why should you pay back what you owe when they made a mistake of not taking money from you. Yawn.
 
It could be argued you got 4yr extension of interest free payments. You should really have noticed this at some point over 4yrs.

I have no experience of how these things work, but I would have thought a customer should not be letf out of pocket through a IT error by the bank. A fee perhaps for the extension but not the full whack.

If you read your mortgage contact (that you signed) there is probably a clause that gives the bank permission to change repayments, upwards and downwards, and how it effects the total to be repaid.

https://www.centralbank.ie/about-us/Pages/ComplaintsagainstFinancialServiceProviders.aspx
 
At the moment the Bank are stating that I have a capital shortfall of 40,000 but if they applied the money I have paid corrctly to my account the outstanding balance would reduce by approximately 30,000.

The money you paid was only enough to cover the interest, you weren't paying off any capital. There's no way the balance now owed can be reduced by accounting for the payments in a different way. Looking only at the total money paid over ignores the "time value" of money.

The bank may be saying that if they had charged you more money each month, then some of that would have come off the capital, leaving you with a higher proportion of the repayment going off the capital each month, eventually paying an extra €30,000 off the capital.

I think it would be reasonable for you to expect the bank to extend the mortgage term rather than force accelerated capital repayments on you at this stage. But I don't think they should wipe away the capital shortfall.
 
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