Bank not allowing change of date of mtg DD

hippy1975

Registered User
Messages
271
Just wondering if anyone has any experience of this, I want to change the date of the DD for my mortgage by just a few days, as the way in which I get paid is soon changing, I called Ulster Bank and they said that due to system limitations the date cannot change, it's the 1st of the month for everyone on that product (tracker mtg) and no way can it be changed - seems very strange to me ?
I would have thought there may be certain cycles like you can take the 1st, 7th or 14th etc but to only have one day and no other option seems a little bizzare to me. Just wondering if anyone knows anything about this or should I push it further, thanks
 
Is the mortgage with Ulster Bank, or the account from which the DD is being paid, or both ? I've never heard of this limitation with DDs. Surely they can define a new DD for the new date and cancel the old ?

I suspect that because it's a tracker that they're being inflexible, i.e. already losing money on the mortgage so why be flexible ?

Or maybe that's just me being cynical ?
 
sorry TarfHead, I should have clarified, both the mtg and the current a/c from which the DD is coming are with UB so I was really stumped that the answer was just a blunt 'no'. I asked why etc. but the person clearly didn't know as just said it was a system issue and kept repeating the same thing. Maybe I'll try get it from them in writing and see is the answer the same.....you may be right, it may be the tracker aspect,
 
I have a mortgage with Barclays in the UK, and they too have only one date for DD payments, which cannot be changed. So it is probably not that unusual.
 
Hi hippy

I understand that UB's systems are fairly old and difficult to upgrade.

Most people get paid towards the end of the month, so the 1st of the month is a good day for a DD.

You might speak to your employer and see can they pay you earlier.

Brendan
 
I would follow it up in writing with bank and check it out with a call to Financial Ombudman Office. You are probably dealing with a junior member of staff who cannot be bothered to follow it up .
 
You are probably dealing with a junior member of staff who cannot be bothered to follow it up .

Yeah. I'm sure she used to work for me.

Regarding the DD. The date shouldn't be a problem. Is it not possible to leave the money in your current account until the end of the month? Maybe the first month might cause a problem but after that it is just a question of leaving the cash there to meet the payment.
 
im on an ulster bank tracker and it comes out on the 27th of the month from my current a/c
 
Do not underestimate the complexity of I.T. systems used in banks. Most of the time it is a hodgepodge of new and (very) old systems that have been cobbled together and making any kind of change is a tiresome and expensive proceedure.
 
hi, I think at present the banks are just looking for any excuse to get people off the trackers. They aren't making any money on them. They will do anything they can to
make life difficult for you, if you want to change any terms they might try and say you have breeched the contract and then they can take it off you....
 
the problem is a system one as has been mentioned before.
they have many different mortgage systems.
they arent trying to get you off the tracker.
they physically cannot move your dd to another date.
the financial regulator will not be able to do anything about it.
 
I had the exact same problem with UB when I changed jobs.
In my old job, I got paid on the 25 of every month and mortgage dd was taken out on the 26.

When I changed jobs, my pay date changed to the last working day of every month. I contacted UB to get it changed to this and they refused, saying the last day for a dd to take effect was the 25 and they could not move this upwards (am on a .75% tracker, go figure....) The only way to change the dd was to move it to the first of every month, but I then would have had to make two mortgage payments in the space of a week...

After a number of attempts to resolve this, I simply called the UB DD dept and cancelled my direct debit for the mortgage. I got the mortgage account number and sort code, and I now pay the mortgage the day I get paid via AIB online banking. Once ub receive the money within 4 weeks of it falling due, I do not incur late payments / letters / bad ICB.

Have recently gone one better and set up a standing order on my current account to transfer the money on the 30th of every month, keeping an eye on those months when I get paid on the 31st, when I suspend the SO and pay manually online.

A bit of a pain, but better than getting hit twice in a month...
 
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I would be very wary of changing the date of my mortgage payment especially if you are bringing it forward i.e. changing from the 25th of the month to the 30th. A friend of mine did this 10/15 years ago and when she got to what she thought was the end of her mortgage she was told she still had another two years to pay.

Their explanation was that even though she still paid every month because she had brought it forward by a week per month she had effectively added on a week per month to her mortgage which in her case amounted to two years. I would rather suffer paying two months in one than having to pay years onto the end of it.
 

Huh ? That makes no sense to me, unless there was some sort of penalty pricing included in that particular product.
 
Huh ? That makes no sense to me, unless there was some sort of penalty pricing included in that particular product.

If you think about it if you start paying a week later every month for the rest of your mortgage if you work it out what you get is:

7 days x 12 months x say 10 years left = 840 days / 365 = 2.3 years

In my friends case when she asked if she could pay on a later date they had no problem with it but also they did not explain what would happen if she did and she had to pay an extra c. 2 years on her mortgage.
 
If you think about it if you start paying a week later every month for the rest of your mortgage if you work it out what you get is ..

Are you suggesting ..

Month1, pay week1
Month2, pay week2
Month3, pay week3
Month4, pay week4
Month6, pay week1
Month7, pay week2

.. and so on ..

What is more likely (IMHO) what happened is ..

Month1, pay week1
Month2, pay week1
Month3, pay week2
Month4, pay week2

Which may have generated a higher than expected interest charge, the next time interest was charged. After which it reverted to the previous pattern and should not have given rise to any underpayment or change in the end date.
 
Don't mean to be going off the point but... Is my understanding correct that the same principle applies if you go to paying your mortgage from Monthly to Weekly so you end up reducing the term of your mortgage because you're paying more frequently? I hope so because I changed recently thinking that was the case.
 
I have both mortgage and current account with UB and changed the DD date on which I pay my mortgage. Was no hassle at all - I was originally paying it around the end of the month but brought I forward to the 7th. I got hit with 2 payments in quick succession but they did it without any trouble.
 

Whoever you were talking to in UB is telling you a load of rubbish, I've a tracker with them and the DD is on the 22nd of the month
 
I have been having the exact same problem with UB for nearly a decade now. Recently they have said that they can now change the date. But they say there will be an interest payment to do so. I have asked them numerous times if this is a once-off payment that will be in place for the first payment only or is it a charge every month from now on. But I could not get a straight answer. They kept saying that there are no charges or additional fees, it is interest. Never a straight answer, only the repeat of it being interest.

Can anybody please reply to this that will give me some idea of sorting this bloody thing out