Mortgage Help and Guidance

If you are having trouble paying your mortgage, then we’ll try to help you. You can also view our Difficulties paying your mortgage page.

Are you having problems paying your mortgage?
If you are having trouble paying your mortgage, you should contact us first and as early as possible and then we’ll try to help you. The following information explains how we will treat you fairly and some steps you should take to help yourself.

We will:
-Contact you as soon as possible to discuss your problem.

-Give you reasonable time to pay back the debt

-Only start proceedings to repossess your home if we cannot solve the problem by working with you.

We might be able to:
-Arrange a new payment plan with you, taking all interests into account

-Change the way that you make your payments, or the date on which you make them

-Allow you to pay back the mortgage over a longer period of time (which would reduce your monthly repayments)

-Change the type of mortgage

-If we cannot offer you any of the above options, we will explain why. If we can make one of these arrangements with you, we will explain how it would work and give you time to consider.

-If we cannot offer any of these options, we might agree to you remaining in the property to sell the property yourself, depending on your circumstances.

What you can do to help us:
If you are having trouble paying your mortgage, you should contact us first and as early as possible and then we’ll try to help you.

Read the Money Helper guide entitled ‘Problems paying your mortgage’. It is available at moneyhelper.org.uk or by phoning 0300 500 5000

Seek debt advice if you would like help with managing your finances. Here are some options of who can help you:

-Money Helper – 0300 5005000
-StepChange – 0800 1381111
-National Debtline – 0808 8084000
-Citizens Advice Bureau – 03444 111444 (England) 03444 772020 (Wales)

You may want to talk to a professional advisor, such as a debt counsellor or a lawyer. We advise you to do this before you change your mortgage arrangements. We do strongly advise that you seek independent and free debt advice first.

If we try and contact you, please come back to us quickly. This will really help the process.

Make sure you keep any other people paying the mortgage, and anyone guaranteeing the mortgage, up-to date with what is happening

Keep to the payment plan we agree with you. Or tell us if there is a change in your circumstances which may affect the arrangement. If you do not make the agreed payment, we might have to go to court to get back any money you owe us, or to repossess your property.

Check whether you can get any state benefits or tax credits which could help to increase your income.

If you have an insurance policy, check whether it would help with your payments. Let us know if you move to a new address.

Costs and charges
If you are in arrears, we may charge you for reasonable administrative and legal costs. We will inform you beforehand of any costs you will have to pay.

If we cannot settle on a solution:
-We may send a debt counsellor to visit you to discuss your financial circumstances, and this cost may be charged to your mortgage account
-We may go to Court to start proceedings to repossess your home. If proceedings take place, we strongly recommend that you attend the Court and that you seek independent debt advice
-Starting Court proceedings does not necessarily mean that we will repossess your home. We will keep trying to solve the problem with you. Possession is only the last resort

If we do have to repossess your home, we will give you advice about getting in touch with your local authority to see if they can find you somewhere else to live.

If we repossess your home:
-We will sell it for the best price we can reasonably get. We will try to sell it as soon as possible
-We will give you reasonable time to take the possessions from your home
-We will use the money raised from selling your home to pay your mortgage and any other loans or charges
-If there is any money left over, we will pay it to you.

If selling your home does not raise enough money to pay off the mortgage
If there is not enough money from the sale to pay the whole mortgage, you will still owe us the amount that is left (a shortfall debt). We will inform you of this is as soon as possible.

If you bought your home with other borrowers, each of you is responsible for all the money borrowed. This is true even if you normally only pay part of the mortgage.

We will contact you within six years of selling your property to arrange for you to pay back what you still owe.

We will take account of your income and outgoings when we arrange a payment plan for this shortfall debt with you. But if we cannot arrange a suitable plan, we may go to Court to get our money returned. You may have to pay additional court costs.

If a shortfall debt is not paid, it could affect whether you are able to get credit in future.

Other issues
Some companies may offer you new loans, or even invite you to sell your property to them, and then lease it back as a way of resolving your short-term financial difficulty. Please be careful, as such actions may not be in your long-term best interests. We would advise you to seek independent advice before entering into any arrangement of this type.

You may be thinking about handing your keys over to us. If you do this, you will still owe us any outstanding debt, and we would advise you to discuss this option with us before taking such action.

Complaints
If you do not think that you have been treated fairly, you can make a complaint by following our Complaints Procedure.

If you do not already know an independent mortgage advisor, or you wish to check that the adviser you are dealing with is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, you can search the Financial Services register.

As the UK’s largest advice provider, the Citizens Advice offers a range of money advice services which may be of help to you. Advice covers various areas such as debt, budgeting, cost of living, pensions and mortgage problems.

Harpenden Building Society is committed to providing a first class service. We recognise that from time to time mistakes may occur and we then fall short of the high standards to which we aspire. We want to know about these occasions, so that we can learn from them and use this knowledge to continue to enhance our service.

Your feedback is very important. If at any time you are dissatisfied, please tell us straightaway so that we can investigate and put right any mistake or omission, promptly.

PROCEDURE

If you want to make a complaint, you can do this by:

SAVINGS

-Calling in at any branch and speaking to a member of staff
-Calling our Member Services Team on 01582 765411
-Contacting the Branch Manager at your branch, either by phone or letter
-Or email us at: memberservices@harpendenbs.co.uk

MORTGAGES

-Calling the Mortgage Department on 01582 463133
-Emailing the Mortgage Department at mortgages@harpendenbs.co.uk

GENERAL

-Calling in at any branch and speaking to a member of staff
-Calling our Member Services Team on 01582 765411

Emailing us at: memberservices@harpendenbs.co.uk

OUR COMPLAINTS HANDLING PROCESS

We will do all that we can to resolve your complaint as quickly as possible and ideally by the close of business on the third working day, following the receipt of your complaint. If your complaint is resolved within three working days, we will send you a letter that acknowledges your complaint and confirms that the Society has now resolved it to your satisfaction and the matter is considered closed.

If we are not able to do this, we will send you a written acknowledgement, at the close of the fifth working day after receipt, to confirm we have received your complaint and to provide contact details of the person who is dealing with the matter. We will keep you informed and once our investigations are complete we will provide you with our final response in writing.

Complaints about payment transactions or a payment account

If your complaint (or part of it) concerns a payment transaction or a payment account, we will endeavour to deal with your complaint within 15 working days. If circumstances beyond our reasonable control prevent us from sending you our final response to your complaint in this time frame, we will instead send you a holding response explaining clearly why this is the case and specifying when we will be able to. In those circumstances, you will receive our final response within 35 working days.

Complaints about other matters

If within eight weeks of receiving your complaint we are not able to provide you with a final response, we will write to you again to tell you this, informing you why we are not in a position to, and let you know when we expect to be able to do so. If we do not deal with your complaint to your satisfaction, you can refer it to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

Their address is as follows:
Financial Ombudsman Service
Exchange Tower
London
E14 9SR

Telephone: 0300 123 9 123 or 0800 0234567
E-mail: complaint.info@financial–ombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk

You can also access the Financial Ombudsman Service online, but only if you applied for goods and services online and you reside in the European Union. You can access this alternative service at: www.ec.europa.eu and you must quote our e-mail address which is memberservices@harpendenbs.co.uk

If you choose to submit your complaint in this way, it will be forwarded to the Financial Ombudsman Service. It can take longer for the Financial Ombudsman Service to receive your complaint if you submit it online, so we would recommend that you go to them directly, to save you time.

Our aim is to resolve any complaint reasonably and speedily. The person handling your complaint will have appropriate knowledge, experience and authority to deal with the issues that you have raised.

If you are not satisfied with the Society’s final response, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service, free of charge – but you must do so within six months of the date of this letter.

If you do not refer your complaint in time, the Ombudsman will not have our permission to consider your complaint and so will only be able to do so in very limited circumstances. For example, if the Ombudsman believes that the delay was as a result of exceptional circumstances.

You may also be able to submit complaints to the Financial Conduct Authority.

Your Suggestions
We always welcome any suggestions or comments you may have on how we can improve our service to our customers. You can contact us on memberservices@harpendenbs.co.uk and we’ll take a look.

View our complaints procedure here.