Hi .. I have a quick question .. I have cleared my arrears on my mortgage however they have added on legal fees even though I have not been to court .. can they do this .. I was so relieved to clear my arrears completely. They just added on the extra amount and when I queried it they told me it was legal fees
EBS issues proceedings with arrears of €193 and adds €900 legal fees
- Thread starter Pnurse
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Brendan Burgess
Founder
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Hi Pnurse
Yes, they can. The mortgage agreement allows them to add on legal fees.
The bizarre thing is that once they issue formal legal proceedings, they must get the approval of the court for any further costs.
How much did they charge you?
Which lender?
What legal action happened? For example, legal letters etc?
Did they issue you a bill? If not, you should ask for a detailed bill.
Brendan
Yes, they can. The mortgage agreement allows them to add on legal fees.
The bizarre thing is that once they issue formal legal proceedings, they must get the approval of the court for any further costs.
How much did they charge you?
Which lender?
What legal action happened? For example, legal letters etc?
Did they issue you a bill? If not, you should ask for a detailed bill.
Brendan
Hi ..
my lender is Ebs and I have been charged €900 in legal fees.
My arrears amounted to €1600 and I had just cleared them when a civil bill arrived with a court date for July. No other legal action has happened and was only informed in Jan that they had passed me on to their legal dept .. things escalated I felt very quickly for such a relatively small amount of money. I had been chipping away at the arrears and also paying my mortgage in full for the past two years.
I am so shocked. They are not even replying to any correspondence I have sent.
Am I even entitled to an explanation as to how this amount was calculated.
my lender is Ebs and I have been charged €900 in legal fees.
My arrears amounted to €1600 and I had just cleared them when a civil bill arrived with a court date for July. No other legal action has happened and was only informed in Jan that they had passed me on to their legal dept .. things escalated I felt very quickly for such a relatively small amount of money. I had been chipping away at the arrears and also paying my mortgage in full for the past two years.
I am so shocked. They are not even replying to any correspondence I have sent.
Am I even entitled to an explanation as to how this amount was calculated.
Brendan Burgess
Founder
- Messages
- 52,099
EBS is notorious for this.
OK, so you have a court date for July.
Go to the court.
EBS will apply to have the case struck out.
Stand up and tell the Registrar your story. Tell them you want her to instruct EBS to reverse any charges they have imposed on you.
The Registrar will say "Struck out with no order as to costs". Then ask the Registrar to give an order to reverse them. Ask the Registrar how would you get a copy of this order.
Are you saying that your arrears were never more than €1,600 and they initiated legal proceedings?
Brendan
OK, so you have a court date for July.
Go to the court.
EBS will apply to have the case struck out.
Stand up and tell the Registrar your story. Tell them you want her to instruct EBS to reverse any charges they have imposed on you.
The Registrar will say "Struck out with no order as to costs". Then ask the Registrar to give an order to reverse them. Ask the Registrar how would you get a copy of this order.
Are you saying that your arrears were never more than €1,600 and they initiated legal proceedings?
Brendan
LMy arrears started two years ago and amounted to 4 missed mortgage payments amounting to 2500.
Since that time I paid my full mortgage plus an extra sum to chip away at the arrears every month.
The arrears were decreasing every month. They contacted me in sept to fill out a budget statement and I also sent them in some wage slips... they then wanted bank statements . My arrears at this stage where €1900.. then the wanted me to fill out another budget statement . I am a nurse and work shift hours and Im afraid I didn't get round to doing another one of the budget statements. That when things escalated. All the while, I'm paying my mortgage in full and a bit more to cover the arrears. Suddenly go a letter to say they were passing me on to legal dept .. that was Dec. So I worked hard and in Feb my arrears were down to less than 1000 .. got the legal civil bill on march 31 . I rang April 3rd and asked how much were my arrears .. they were €173 .. but an amount of €900 was added on for legal fees. I can't tell you how shocked I was . I have been writing to them constantly but they don't acknowledge my letters.. also phone calls.. get a different person all the time
I feel that because my house is worth a lot more than my mortgage they see me as an easy target to get money. I have only €50000 left on my mortgage and my house is worth about €350000
Since that time I paid my full mortgage plus an extra sum to chip away at the arrears every month.
The arrears were decreasing every month. They contacted me in sept to fill out a budget statement and I also sent them in some wage slips... they then wanted bank statements . My arrears at this stage where €1900.. then the wanted me to fill out another budget statement . I am a nurse and work shift hours and Im afraid I didn't get round to doing another one of the budget statements. That when things escalated. All the while, I'm paying my mortgage in full and a bit more to cover the arrears. Suddenly go a letter to say they were passing me on to legal dept .. that was Dec. So I worked hard and in Feb my arrears were down to less than 1000 .. got the legal civil bill on march 31 . I rang April 3rd and asked how much were my arrears .. they were €173 .. but an amount of €900 was added on for legal fees. I can't tell you how shocked I was . I have been writing to them constantly but they don't acknowledge my letters.. also phone calls.. get a different person all the time
I feel that because my house is worth a lot more than my mortgage they see me as an easy target to get money. I have only €50000 left on my mortgage and my house is worth about €350000
Hi .. just to follow up .. I have just returned from my first appointment with MABS.
I can only say that I wish now that I had contacted them sooner.
I sat down and went through everything with the representative and feel relieved to not feel I am on my own in dealing with the EBS.
She helped with the wording of all the issues around why it got to the stage it had. I'm afraid I'm out of my comfort zone when dealing with bank and legal matters and have found it difficult to explain.
The bottom line is that eventhough I have cleared all the arrears I didn't submit all the information they had asked for i.e. Bank statements, so therefore I was classed as uncooperative and they therefore have a right to charge legal fees. I was totally unaware of the seriousness of not giving them all of the information that they wanted.
So going forward it is a process and I am in it, eventhough my arrears are cleared .. MABS are supporting me to negotiate with the Ebs legal fees.
I still have the stress of the court date in July ... I have never been in a court in my life ... so it is daunting.
So anyone reading this please go to MABS , no matter how small the arrears , they will explain and support you to understand how fast things can escalate.
Anyway that's me for now will keep you updated.. hopefully this will help someone in similar situation.
I can only say that I wish now that I had contacted them sooner.
I sat down and went through everything with the representative and feel relieved to not feel I am on my own in dealing with the EBS.
She helped with the wording of all the issues around why it got to the stage it had. I'm afraid I'm out of my comfort zone when dealing with bank and legal matters and have found it difficult to explain.
The bottom line is that eventhough I have cleared all the arrears I didn't submit all the information they had asked for i.e. Bank statements, so therefore I was classed as uncooperative and they therefore have a right to charge legal fees. I was totally unaware of the seriousness of not giving them all of the information that they wanted.
So going forward it is a process and I am in it, eventhough my arrears are cleared .. MABS are supporting me to negotiate with the Ebs legal fees.
I still have the stress of the court date in July ... I have never been in a court in my life ... so it is daunting.
So anyone reading this please go to MABS , no matter how small the arrears , they will explain and support you to understand how fast things can escalate.
Anyway that's me for now will keep you updated.. hopefully this will help someone in similar situation.
And yet I have seen several cases , mostly from KBC, where banks routinely apply interim legal fees to mortgage accounts after formal legal proceedings have been issued with no right whatsoever to do so. It's a nonchalant two fingers to the courts and the Central Bank. Only in Ireland.
I think some people reading your story will be thinking "Pnurse must have got this wrong", but believe me: every thing you say rings true. Unless you've been there, done that, it is hard to credit the behaviour of the banks in dealing with cases like yours. You are absolutely not alone.
I sincerely hope "negotiate" means you won't pay a single cent.
You have absolutely nothing to fear: on the contrary it's EBS who have something to fear, if you follow Brendan's advice above. I know it's easy to say try not to worry, but keep in mind: you won't be the first to describe such a scenario and how the banks are behaving.
Good advice, and yes, this will help someone. Best of luck, not that you need it.
Thankyou newtothis for your encouragement.
I am also encouraged and feel empowered with Brendan's advise.
Whilst sorting through my papers with MABS yesterday the timeline of my dealings with Ebs were highlighted. Ebs passed me to their legal dept when my arrears were €1900.... they iniatiated proceeding against me when the arrears stood at €400.
As I have said I paid the final €400 and then they lumped €900 onto my mortgage account without my consent or even without notifying me. I only found out when I phoned them to confirm my arrears were clear.
I feel totally bullied by the EBS.. they had no basis to issue those proceedings.
I am a nurse and have had to book the day off to attend the court date in July .... all a process in which I feel I did all the right things bar not giving them my bank statements.
I can fully see that people would think .. ahh there must be more to this but I can assure you there is not.
I am actually hoping the registrar on the day will hear my story and will see how Ebs have treated me.
I will have the lovely girl from MABS beside me too and hopefully I will succeed in highlighting EBS practice
Pnurse
I am also encouraged and feel empowered with Brendan's advise.
Whilst sorting through my papers with MABS yesterday the timeline of my dealings with Ebs were highlighted. Ebs passed me to their legal dept when my arrears were €1900.... they iniatiated proceeding against me when the arrears stood at €400.
As I have said I paid the final €400 and then they lumped €900 onto my mortgage account without my consent or even without notifying me. I only found out when I phoned them to confirm my arrears were clear.
I feel totally bullied by the EBS.. they had no basis to issue those proceedings.
I am a nurse and have had to book the day off to attend the court date in July .... all a process in which I feel I did all the right things bar not giving them my bank statements.
I can fully see that people would think .. ahh there must be more to this but I can assure you there is not.
I am actually hoping the registrar on the day will hear my story and will see how Ebs have treated me.
I will have the lovely girl from MABS beside me too and hopefully I will succeed in highlighting EBS practice
Pnurse
Also make sure you have a notebook with a bullet points of all your story so you don't forget anything.
Brendan Burgess
Founder
- Messages
- 52,099
Hi P
It's essential that you try to go to a repossession session before your actual day in court. You will see how the Registrar thinks and speaks and you will see that it's not that daunting and that you have nothing to fear.
The EBS solicitor will stand up quickly when the case is called and just say "Registrar you can strike that one out with no order - the arrears have been cleared". They will try to hurry it through and assume you have not turned up. They might even write to you or call you beforehand telling you that there is no need for you to show up.
But you should show up. And when your case is called, go up to the front of the court and tell the Registrar that you want to tell your story. I have not been to the court in Galway, so I don't know how the Registrar there behaves. But any of the other ones I have seen would read the Riot Act to EBS and issue an order for them to reverse the charges.
Brendan
It's essential that you try to go to a repossession session before your actual day in court. You will see how the Registrar thinks and speaks and you will see that it's not that daunting and that you have nothing to fear.
The EBS solicitor will stand up quickly when the case is called and just say "Registrar you can strike that one out with no order - the arrears have been cleared". They will try to hurry it through and assume you have not turned up. They might even write to you or call you beforehand telling you that there is no need for you to show up.
But you should show up. And when your case is called, go up to the front of the court and tell the Registrar that you want to tell your story. I have not been to the court in Galway, so I don't know how the Registrar there behaves. But any of the other ones I have seen would read the Riot Act to EBS and issue an order for them to reverse the charges.
Brendan