Hi,
About 6 weeks ago, I contacted the BOI branch where myself and my fiancé have our mortgage and enquired about how to start making overpayments on our tracker mortgage. I was told to write a letter to them with my instructions. So I wrote a letter stating that we wanted to pay 50 euro extra off the principle amount of my mortgage every two weeks (we pay our mortgage fortnightly). I asked for confirmation of this in writing (which I didn't get). This brought our repayment every two weeks to 750 euro. One repayment of 750 went out of our account. Shortly after this, the ECB raised the interest rate by 0.25%. Another repayment of 750 went out. We then got a letter informing us that the rate had gone up and stating that the repayment would be 750 including our recent overpayment instruction. This didn’t add up so I phoned the BOI mortgage division today. It turns out that they are taking the extra interest from our overpayment – despite my written instruction that the 50euro extra was to go towards the principle amount. Our actual extra payment now is only about 30euro.
This seems just plain wrong to me – surely they should be following my instructions and increasing the amount taken from our account to include both the overpayment and the interest? If I had not had any overpayment in place, they would have taken the extra interest from our account anyway - why can they not do this when I am paying extra?According to the girl I spoke with today, everytime there’s an interest rate raise, I will have to write to my branch asking them to raise the amount taken to ensure there is a 50euro payment made towards the principle.
I am going to phone the mortgage advisor in my branch tomorrow morning but does anyone have any thoughts or opinions before I do this? Is this the practice with every bank?
Appreciate any comments!
Thanks, Triona
About 6 weeks ago, I contacted the BOI branch where myself and my fiancé have our mortgage and enquired about how to start making overpayments on our tracker mortgage. I was told to write a letter to them with my instructions. So I wrote a letter stating that we wanted to pay 50 euro extra off the principle amount of my mortgage every two weeks (we pay our mortgage fortnightly). I asked for confirmation of this in writing (which I didn't get). This brought our repayment every two weeks to 750 euro. One repayment of 750 went out of our account. Shortly after this, the ECB raised the interest rate by 0.25%. Another repayment of 750 went out. We then got a letter informing us that the rate had gone up and stating that the repayment would be 750 including our recent overpayment instruction. This didn’t add up so I phoned the BOI mortgage division today. It turns out that they are taking the extra interest from our overpayment – despite my written instruction that the 50euro extra was to go towards the principle amount. Our actual extra payment now is only about 30euro.
This seems just plain wrong to me – surely they should be following my instructions and increasing the amount taken from our account to include both the overpayment and the interest? If I had not had any overpayment in place, they would have taken the extra interest from our account anyway - why can they not do this when I am paying extra?According to the girl I spoke with today, everytime there’s an interest rate raise, I will have to write to my branch asking them to raise the amount taken to ensure there is a 50euro payment made towards the principle.
I am going to phone the mortgage advisor in my branch tomorrow morning but does anyone have any thoughts or opinions before I do this? Is this the practice with every bank?
Appreciate any comments!
Thanks, Triona