Bristol & West Mortgage Redemption Charges

[Shady]

Hi chaps

Like everyone I have challenged my lender to justify their Mortgage Redemption Charge of £195 - in the hope that I would get a nice fat figure back.

However, I have just received a letter back from Bristol & West outlining their justification as follows:-

"Bristol & West produce as many redemption statements as requested leading up to the redemption of a mortgage. We deal with all related correspondence and liase with you and / or yuor solicitors during the process. We accept and process the final payment, close the mortgage account, release any registration and pre-registration documents, and discharge our charge at the Land Registry".

"There are other activities involved during the redemption process, which are covered by the fee. Non-exhaustive examples of these include the transfer of the redemtption monies from our general bank account to the mortgage account, quality checks undertaken to ensure amounts and account details are accurate, and reporting of the redemption activities between our Finance and Mortgage Services Departments. Several Bristol & West staff are required in order to facilitate the above administration and redemption of your mortgage account"

They state that, when I took out my mortgage in October 1998, the charges were outlined in their document 'Your Guide to Mortgage Charges' - however I cannot locate this document to confirm.

Would anyone have a copy of this document (from October 1998), and if so, could they send me a copy or advise me of the contents ? Please PM me if this is possible.

They state that there original cost is made up of 10 days interest and and administration fee of £87.50. What they have stated is that as a gesture of goodwill, they would reimburse me the difference between how much I actually paid (£195), and the cost it should have been if they had applied their original charges (£170) - therefore I can look forward to the princely sum of £25.

My question is this though - although Bristol & West have justified the costs and state that these were known to me in advance, surely these tasks are no different to what other organisations have to go through - and these lenders have paid up as the charges made were not reflective of the actual work required.

Should I accept the offer, or write back and reject this on the above grounds ? If so, I could do with more information to help back up my claim, so if anyone could help that would be much appreciated.


Many thanks