Visit from bank official today regarding mortgage

M

murrf

Registered User
Messages
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I would be very grateful of any opinions or advice on our situation as detailed below. Today, we received an unannounced visit from a bank official even though we thought our case was being looked at by the restructuring team in KBC. We have been in regular contact with the bank and have now contacted the IMHO to see if they can help us. The bank official today really frightened me as he said if we do not make contact with them it will be escalated to the legal proceeding stage. As you will see below we have been in regular contact with the bank and the official today said he was not aware we are dealing with the IMHO even though we rang KBC last week and asked them to note this on our file as was advised to us by the IMHO.

Income details
Net monthly Main Breadwinner €2640 after all deductions, full time permanent, private sector worker. This amount can vary from week to week but an average figure per month is the above. Sometimes more but rarely less.
Income history: I have managed to keep my job in the construction sector and have never been unemployed although for the past few years my income has been drastically reduced due to less hours, no pay rises and more taxes, USC etc.
Net monthly Partner: €800
Income history: Part-time in the past few months due to ill health, mainly stress related. Private sector, contract based but all over fairly regular apart from summer months. Previously I was in full time work and hope to be able to return to this in the near future. Even if it means changing job categories as the job I am in at present is stressful on it's own even if I was not under this additional stress.

Amount of child benefit received: €130
Amount of Mortgage Interest Supplement received 0

Personal circumstances so we can calculate your reasonable living expenses
Two adults with 2 children both in late teens. One girl in college and traveling there every day. We help with those travel expenses although this teenager does have a part time job and really is very good at financing any social costs for themselves. Other girl in secondary school with all associated costs.
One adult family or two adult family: 2 adults
Do you need a car for work or do you use public transport? Both need a car each as we work in different areas of the country. Husband travels quite a distance for work each day which contributes to high fuel costs. Unavoidable as there is nobody else traveling to this area so travel sharing is not an option. Both vehicles are not new and no finance or loans are owed on them.
Number of children 0- 2 years old:0
Number of 3 years old children: 0
Number of 4 - 11 years old:0
Number of 12 - 18 years old:2
Monthly childcare costs: 0
Monthly spend on special circumstances: Nothing that is a regular payment, although we have high travel costs. €500 per month between diesel for both vehicles. We live in the countryside so public transport is not an option.

Home loan
Lender: KBC
Amount outstanding: Approx €200,000
Value of home: Approx €120,000
Interest rate: Tracker @ 0.9%
Monthly repayment: Should be €1090 but we were on an agreed figure of €600 per month. The idea was that if we adhered to this payment for 6 months, the bank would look at capitalising the arrears and agreeing an affordable repayment for us. This has not happened. Arrears are building up again as the bank seem to be pushing us from pillar to post with no answer even though we have provided all documents, SFS, wage slips and bank statements.
Amount in arrears: €17,000

Summary of discussions and agreements with the bank: As above we were on reduced payments of €600 per month with the idea of capitalising arrears at the end of the 6 months and finding a figure per month that we could afford and which was acceptable to the bank. Getting phone calls daily and letters every week from the bank, seeming to come from different departments. No real move on trying to get anything sorted out. We are just getting hounded and harassed. Now today we have had a visit from an official from the bank even though we contacted KBC last week to tell them we are going to be dealing with the services of the IMHO. I asked the official today why he was at my house and he didn't seem to know. Except to tell me to phone the bank. I did this and they asked for extra information regarding any efforts we have made to reduce our outgoings. We have made some reductions in the past few months so I gave the details of those over the phone. We received so many letters in the past few weeks. One stated that if we did not make contact we would be deemed as non-cooperating. So we made contact more than once. But still we have received this very upsetting visit today.

Credit Union
Amount of shares: 0
Amount of loan outstanding: 0
Monthly repayment : 0
Term left N/A


Other loans and creditors - delete those which don't apply to you
Credit Card - €4000
Monthly payment - €80 (Restructured)


Other savings and investments

Do you expect any lump sums in the medium term future?
Not that we anticipate

How important is retaining the family home to you?
Extremely important, will not happily consider anything else. This is our home and our childrens' home. It doesn't matter to us if we are in negative equity as we never planned to have to sell it. I really want to keep the family home even if it means having a large mortgage and negative equity for years to come.


Any other relevant information

What is your preferred realistic outcome?
To have an affordable monthly repayment which works towards clearing our mortgage eventually. Would be interested in a split mortgage with some arrangement to increase payments every couple of years. Possibly an increase in the term of the mortgage as we are both just over 40 years old with 17 years remaining on our mortgage. Not sure what criteria KBC apply though. Would we need another plan in place to pay off any warehoused portion? We also do not want to lose our tracker mortgage if possible as this should buffer us against any future interest rate rises. However, we also need to be able to live and be motivated enough to actually go to work every day and because we are stuck in the middle layer of earning above the threshold for the medical card and qualifying for grants for college we seem to be getting hit from all sides. Our health and happiness is not the same anymore since all of this started and we really need a solution to this mess.

We have now sent everything to the IMHO but would really welcome the opinions of the experts on this forum also. Any experiences of people in the same or similar boat would be very appreciated.

Many thanks for reading
 
It seems to me like there is some miscommunication, I'd bet my bottom dollar that the bank are waiting on further documentation from you.

KBC do not capitalise arrears unless 6 consecutive FULL payments have been received, this could be the original payments OR the new payments following a permanent restructuring, you would never have gotten a capitalisation after 6 months partial payments.

It seems to me that you received a 6 month transition restructure with a view to moving to a long term offer pending you sending in up to date documentation closer to the end of the 6 month arrangement. Most likely, they were looking for two consecutive payslips for each of you and up to date bank statements. The official (would seem to be an external agent from your post) was engaged to secure this.

The bank are stating that failure to return requested documentation can lead to being deemed non cooperative under MARP

call them and ask them straight out for a definitive list of what they require. Remember that banks do not operate on verbal agreements - if you do not have a written valid amended contract then you are not in agreement and will be billing for full annuity.
 
Macavity said:
call them and ask them straight out for a definitive list of what they require. Remember that banks do not operate on verbal agreements -
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In the spirit of the second sentence here, I'd say change the first sentence to "write to them and ask them straight out for a definitive list of what they require". When you write to them, setting them a (reasonable) deadline for providing that list would probably be a good idea, too.

I believe you are also entitled to request (demand?) that all contact henceforth should be carried out by writing so that unsolicited visits or phonecalls, which add to your stress, are no longer an issue. I think I remember that from some of the threads on MBNA hassling customers. Perhaps someone else in the know could confirm that.
 
We are just getting hounded and harassed. Now today we have had a visit from an official from the bank even though we contacted KBC last week to tell them we are going to be dealing with the services of the IMHO. I asked the official today why he was at my house and he didn't seem to know. Except to tell me to phone the bank.
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and

The bank official today really frightened me as he said if we do not make contact with them it will be escalated to the legal proceeding stage.
Click to expand...

While you can't ignore this, you genuinely have nothing to be frightened about.

You are doing your best.
You are paying at least the interest on the mortgage and a bit of capital.
You are in regular contact with them.
You have been in touch with the IMHO.

That visit should not have happened. It's the bank's fault and not yours. Try not to worry about it. There is no way they will go legal on this.

You are in good hands with the IMHO.
You have a cheap tracker.
You are both working.

You probably should write a letter of formal complaint to KBC, but take IMHO's advice on the matter.
 
RichInSpirit said:
I've heard that Money Bloom Drogheda are very good dealing with mortgage problems.
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They may well be, but the IMHO has an arrangement with KBC and I think that they will have a direct line to someone to stop the sort of harassment which murrf is getting.
 
Macavity said:
It seems to me like there is some miscommunication, I'd bet my bottom dollar that the bank are waiting on further documentation from you.

KBC do not capitalise arrears unless 6 consecutive FULL payments have been received, this could be the original payments OR the new payments following a permanent restructuring, you would never have gotten a capitalisation after 6 months partial payments.

It seems to me that you received a 6 month transition restructure with a view to moving to a long term offer pending you sending in up to date documentation closer to the end of the 6 month arrangement. Most likely, they were looking for two consecutive payslips for each of you and up to date bank statements. The official (would seem to be an external agent from your post) was engaged to secure this.

The bank are stating that failure to return requested documentation can lead to being deemed non cooperative under MARP

call them and ask them straight out for a definitive list of what they require. Remember that banks do not operate on verbal agreements - if you do not have a written valid amended contract then you are not in agreement and will be billing for full annuity.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply. Yes, we seem to have been on as you described a 6 month transition restructure. But we have sent them in documents a few times, including payslips, bank statements and anything else they were looking for. They did have some questions yesterday such as how we have reduced our outgoings. I gave this information to them over the phone yesterday. They have confirmed they have all documents they are looking for.

I have always paid the mortgage weekly in four amounts throughout the month, with the last payment for the month occurring around the end of the month. When the 6 months restructuring was up they started to ask for the payment in advance at the beginning of the month. We couldn't do this so I called the customer service dept. and they put it on file to say the payments would continue as usual, spread throughout the month.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
and



While you can't ignore this, you genuinely have nothing to be frightened about.

You are doing your best.
You are paying at least the interest on the mortgage and a bit of capital.
You are in regular contact with them.
You have been in touch with the IMHO.

That visit should not have happened. It's the bank's fault and not yours. Try not to worry about it. There is no way they will go legal on this.

You are in good hands with the IMHO.
You have a cheap tracker.
You are both working.

You probably should write a letter of formal complaint to KBC, but take IMHO's advice on the matter.
Click to expand...

Brendan, thanks for your reply. I hope you are right. I know we are lucky in that we have the tracker and I think the interest payment would be around €350 per month. So our capital is reducing, albeit not as quickly as it should be.

It is so intimidating to have somebody like that walk in your gate and come to your door. What also bothers me is how did he know which house is ours as we live in village with no house numbers or anything like that.

When he told me it would be escalated to legal proceedings I felt so sick and I have an extremely bad headache since. We just want something sorted that will let us move on from this as it feels like it has been going on forever.

My husband has lodged a formal complaint with the bank yesterday. Surely a phone call to let us know he was in the area would have been better than just turning up unannounced at the door.

I hope that the IMHO can help us to sort something out. They are certainly prompt and efficient up to this point and anything I have read about them is encouraging.
 
RichInSpirit said:
I've heard that Money Bloom Drogheda are very good dealing with mortgage problems.
Click to expand...

RichInSpirit, thanks for this and I have also heard about them. We will leave the case with the IMHO now and hopefully they can help.
 
Janet said:
In the spirit of the second sentence here, I'd say change the first sentence to "write to them and ask them straight out for a definitive list of what they require". When you write to them, setting them a (reasonable) deadline for providing that list would probably be a good idea, too.

I believe you are also entitled to request (demand?) that all contact henceforth should be carried out by writing so that unsolicited visits or phonecalls, which add to your stress, are no longer an issue. I think I remember that from some of the threads on MBNA hassling customers. Perhaps someone else in the know could confirm that.
Click to expand...

Thanks Janet. We spoke to them yesterday regarding what the reason for the visit was. They were looking for updated information regarding any reductions we have made in our outgoings so we gave this to them over the phone.

We have previously only asked them to contact my husband by phone as I was not dealing very well with the constant phone calls. But now they are constantly calling him too. The calls come from different departments though and sometimes he finds himself repeating what he has just told the last caller. This happens while he is at work. We have had three letters alone in the first 10 days of December. And then the visit yesterday. It feels like they are everywhere around me and I cannot get any peace from them.

I think there is something in MARP which gives them permission to come to your home. Even though my husband had been speaking only the week before to the person who called to our home yesterday.
 
Unfortunately, they do need to call on people who are avoiding them. It would be a bit pointless, giving such people notice that they were calling.

Check out the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears though. It has removed the limit of 3 calls per week, but they are not allowed to harass you.

If you receive no satisfaction from them on your complaint, you can take it to the Financial Services Ombudsman.

Brendan
 
I can understand that they need to call to houses where they have had no contact from the mortgage holder. But we had only spoken to them the week previous and to this very same person that called to us yesterday.
 
Ok, you had spoken last week to the person who called to you yesterday? How can he then say he does not know why he is calling?

That seems unacceptable to me.
 
Hi Murrf - As per Janet has pointed out send a letter to the bank stating all your concerns and tell them you will not deal with them over the phone. Also don't let this worry you. It's quite clear they are trying to intimidate you so stick to your guns and uunder no circumstances do you sign anything that states you are coming off your tracker. I suspect they are chancing their arm.
 
Brendan, the person who visited yesterday was not sure what the other department were looking for so he told me to make contact with them. Which I did.
 
murrf said:
I can understand that they need to call to houses where they have had no contact from the mortgage holder. But we had only spoken to them the week previous and to this very same person that called to us yesterday.
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Murrf.
Banks have not proven very good at updating their systems or advising their workers of where things are at .
As Brendan says it is unacceptable but that's Banks for you !

You said you have JUST gone to IMHO .
So it is Probable their restructuring/arrears system have not yet been notified.
Until IMHO are locked into their system on your account you will still get calls/letters as though you are a non co-operating account .
So on ANY future call advise POLITELY you are in the IMHO and to please work via IMHO.
Will take a while for calls to stop but they will.
On letters , return them with add on {being dealt with by IMHO}
Keep copies of everything.

I see you owe 200,000 so I enclose some payments on this .

200000 @ 1% over 360 mths = 643 per mth.
200000 @ 2% over 360 mths= 740 per mth(showing what 1% rate rise does)

200000 over 300 mths @ 1% =753 per mth

From what I read you WILL be ok.

So relax over Christmas.
 
Thanks Elcato. Nobody has mentioned anything to us about coming off the tracker yet. The staff I spoke to in the arrears support office in KBC yesterday were actually very helpful but we still don't have any answer. It has worried me to the point of extreme distress. At this point I do not know what they want or what they intend to do. It's very worrying thinking that any day we will receive a notification telling us that our mortgage is unsustainable or they have decided to escalate to legal proceedings. The information is with the IMHO now or at least it will be later on today. I hope that this will cause some type of resolution to be reached as we just cannot go on like this.
 
Hi murrf

In practice, no one is losing their tracker mortgage due to arrears, so forget about this.

It's extremely unlikely that your mortgage will be deemed unsustainable. This is an admin foul up by KBC. I very much doubt that they are trying to intimidate you.
 
@ Gerry Canning, thanks so much for taking the time to do those figures. Yes, I think that this is what has happened as although we had notified KBC that we are dealing with the IMHO the pack only went back to the IMHO yesterday afternoon. There was supposed to be a note put on file with KBC to let them know of this but the caller yesterday did not have any knowledge of it.

Extending the term to 360 months would mean a 30 year mortgage for us wouldn't it? As we are both just over 40 I don't know if this would be an option. It would feel like we are starting all over again with the past few years of payments wasted. I just hope some type of resolution can be found that means we can stay in our home and have this debt paid off at some point.

I would hope for some type of split mortgage that we can increase the payments of gradually over the next few years. I don't know if this is possible with KBC though?
 
Brendan as I just said to Gerry, nobody from KBC has mentioned coming off our tracker yet so I hope this won't be an issue. The person we dealt with from KBC originally was very helpful but she has been moved to another department now. She was a type of mediator or case manager and was the person who originally set up the €600 per month payments. Its the constant dealing with different people and departments that is a big problem and not being able to get a clear cut answer on exactly what KBC intend to do with our mortgage.

The €600 per month is just about affordable for us without leaving us in a position where we cannot afford to have a normal family life. I know or hope that at some point in the future €600 per month will be easier for us to afford and hopefully we will be able to pay more to clear it.
 
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