Yorkshire Building Society: Were You Wrongly Charged?

Yorkshire Building Society Group has announced plans to refund customers who were wrongly charged for not keeping abreast of their mortgage payments? What are the specifics and could this affect you?

News sources up and down the country have reported that building society and lender Yorkshire Building Society Group has released plan to refund approximately 34,000 of its customers who it estimates were wrongly charged for keeping up with their monthly mortgage payments.

Legally companies are only allowed to place charges on their customers who are in two months of arrears or more, however it has emerged that thousands of customers belonging to the Yorkshire, Chelsea and Barnsley Building Societies had a charge placed onto their bill the moment they missed their first payment.

Following the leak of this news, the FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) conducted an 18 month investigation into the matter and concluded that the building societies in question had put in place procedures that were ill equipped to deal with the issue.

Subsequently this means that the three branches of the Building Society Group in question are now required to provide compensation to those customers who were affected. This means that 33,900 customers will be receiving a payment of £247.

Furthermore the Building Society Group has agreed to provide compensation to every borrower who faced a charge since January 2009, in order to make sure that everyone who deserves compensation gets it quickly.

It’s also important to note that those people who are with the Building Society Group and had accord mortgages with them are also affected; they could be in line to receive compensation.

So how will you know if this affects you, KiranTrivedi readers? Well the bank is planning to send out automated phone calls to all those entitled, so keep an ear out for the phone. If you believe that you are entitled but haven’t received a call, get in touch with them.

This teaches us something about how to handle personal finances. If you’re charged unfairly, there are rules to protect you. Don’t just sit there and take it, lodge a complaint with the FCA and get what you deserve.