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Interest

Interest is calculated on a daily basis from the day following the date of investment until the day prior to withdrawal. If you ask, we will give you a full explanation of how we work out interest.

Interest Rate Variation

You will either be notified of rate changes personally, in writing or they will be published in The Times and Surrey Mirror. Current interest rates are available from the Society's offices or on this web site.

Cleared Funds

The central cheque clearing cycle normally takes three working days. However, as the Society is not a clearing bank, please allow six working days (i.e. excluding weekends and bank holidays) to elapse before withdrawing against any cheques paid into your account, e.g. cheques paid in on a Monday will be cleared for withdrawal on the Tuesday of the following week.

Where cheques are paid in on a Saturday, interest will accrue from the Sunday; however, they are treated as if they were paid in on the following working day for clearance purposes.

In the case of unpaid cheques, no interest will be earned and any interest so credited on the assumption that your cheque would be met will be taken from the account.

Automated payments received by standing order, BACS, or bank credit at our bank are treated as cleared funds and they will be credited to your Holmesdale account at the date of receipt by the bank with interest accruing from the day after deposit. However, payments paid into our account at the Post Office are credited to your account on either the 14th or the last day of each month; they are also treated as cleared funds and interest accrues from those dates.

Cheques

Cheques drawn by the Society on a customer's account, to a third party, will not normally be stopped.  However, in extreme circumstances this can be done, provided the account holder notifies the Society in writing and pays the tariff charge. Cheques must be presented within six months or they become out of date. Monthly Income warrants drawn by the Society must be presented within three months or they will become out of date.

Help us to help you

It will help us to provide you with a high standard of service if you make sure you let us know in writing, as soon as possible, if you change your: name, address or phone number.

Tariff of Charges

Charges are levied for certain transactions. The Society needs to make these charges to cover the costs incurred.

Joint Accounts

Two or more persons may jointly hold a share, unless the terms of the share forbid a joint holding. Persons jointly holding a share shall be entitled to choose the order in which they are named in the Society's records. However, the first named of the joint holders will be regarded by the Society as the representative joint holder.

All joint holders of a share may authorise in writing one of their number to withdraw the share or receive interest or bonus paid in respect thereof. However, if one joint holder is given authority to operate the account and the Society becomes aware of a dispute between the joint holders then both signatures will be required to operate the account. These circumstances may prevail in the case of a divorce or separation. If this is the case you should both come to the Society to arrange for the joint accounts to be closed and new accounts opened in your sole names. If no such authorisation is made all joint holders must sign notices of withdrawal and interest and bonus payments will be made in the names of all joint holders.

Any reference in the Rules to any number of members of the Society shall be read as if any shares held jointly were held by the representative joint holder only.

No joint holder of shares, other than the representative joint holder, may attend a meeting except as a proxy, or exercise any right conferred by the Rules on a member.

A member of the Society who is the representative joint holder and who holds shares at the voting date is entitled to vote on a resolution subject to the Rules of the Society.

Notice of every Annual General Meeting or Special General Meeting shall be sent to the representative joint holder.

Data Protection Act 1998

Customers have the right of access to their personal details held on our computer files and within manual files. The charge per registration accessed is currently £10.

Confidentiality

We will treat all your personal information as private and confidential (even when you are no longer a customer). We will not reveal your name and address or details about your accounts to anyone, including other companies in our group, other than in the following four exceptional cases when we are allowed to do this by law:

1. If we have to give the information by law.
2. If there is a duty to the public to reveal the information.
3. If it is in our interests to give the information. But we will not use this as a reason for giving information about you or your accounts (including your name and address) to anyone else including other companies in our group for marketing purposes.
4. If you ask us to reveal the information, or if we have your permission.

Marketing

Please confirm in writing if you do not wish to receive advertising or general material relating to the services the Society or an associated body can provide.

Complaints Procedure

We hope that you are fully satisfied with the service you receive from the Society. However, if you are not, we have a complaints procedure which is designed to help resolve your complaint in a fair and speedy manner.

Making a complaint

You may make a complaint by any reasonable means, for example, by letter, telephone, e-mail or in person. All complaints should be directed to the Chief Executive and confirmed in writing.

We will send a written acknowledgement of your complaint within five working days (working days exclude weekends and bank holidays).

Within four weeks of receiving your complaint, the Society will either send you a final response, or a holding response which will explain:-

• why we are not yet in a position to resolve the complaint, and
• indicate when the Society will make further contact, which will be no later then eight weeks after the complaint was received.

By the end of eight weeks after receiving your complaint, the Society will send you either:-

1. a final response which

• accepts the complaint and, where applicable, offers redress;
• offers redress without accepting the complaint; or
• rejects the complaint and gives reasons for doing so, including information about your right to complain to the Financial Ombudsman Service;

or

2. a response which

• explains that the Society is still not in a position to make a final response, give reasons for the further delay and
• indicates when the Society expects to be able to provide a final response, and
• informs the complainant that he/she may refer the complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service if he/she is dissatisfied with the delay, and encloses a copy of the Financial Ombudsman Service's explanatory leaflet relating to complaints.

If you decide to pursue your complaint through the Financial Ombudsman Service, you must do so within six months of the date of the final response.

Further information relating to the current Financial Ombudsman Service complaints scheme is available from this Society or direct from the

Financial Ombudsman Service
South Quay Plaza
183 Marsh Wall
London
E14 9SR

Telephone number: 0845 080 1800
E-mail: enquiries@financial-ombudsman.org.uk
Website: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk.

Ombudsman

Member of the Financial Ombudsman Service Scheme. See Complaints Procedure above.

Banking Code

We subscribe to the Banking Code and copies are available upon request or via the Banking Code Standards Board website. http://www.bankingcode.org.uk/libraryhome

Cooling-Off

If you are unhappy about your choice of account within 15 days of opening it, you must tell us in writing, when we will help you switch accounts or give you your money back with interest. The 15 day period commences on the day the account is opened, or the day on which you receive the terms and conditions and other information on paper, whichever is later. We will ignore any notice period or any initial charges.

Moving Your Account

If you decide to move your account to another bank of building society, we will co-operate with them and give them information about regular payments from your account within five business days, so that the transfer is made as efficiently as possible.

Society's Discretion

The Society may at its absolute discretion and without giving any reason, refuse to issue a share to any person or accept a person as a member.

Opening an Account

All accounts must be opened with either cash, or a cheque drawn on an account in your name and made payable to you. Application forms for all of our accounts are available from the Society's office. If you are not already a member with the Holmesdale, or there have been no transactions on your account for more than five years (i.e. the account is dormant), and in various other circumstances, we will require proof of your identity.

Identification Requirements

By law we are required to confirm the name and address of each applicant.

IMPORTANT
The Society will seek information from one or more credit reference agency as detailed in the section headed Data Protection of the application form. The results of this electronic check will determine the paper identification requirements which follow.

Existing Members
If you are an existing member of the Society, you will not usually have to show further proof of your identity if your details match our records and we can verify your signature.

Non-Members
If you are not already a member of the Society, you will be asked for up to two forms of identification from the Preferred Identification list. However, for postal applications please forward two items from the list to ensure your application is not delayed.

Documents printed off the internet are not acceptable forms of identification.

Preferred Identification List (Originals required unless specified)

1Documents may be certified by any of the following professions:

regulated financial advisers or mortgage brokers; solicitors; accountants; bankers; civil servants; teachers, and ministers of religion.

To certify a copy of a document, the following text should be used after the signature: “Original seen” and, where appropriate, “the photograph bears a good likeness of the applicant.” The certifier must also print their name, job title, contact telephone number, employer’s name or company stamp and the date of the signature.

* document must be less than 12 months old
** document must be less than 3 months old

Bank Payments

Arrangements can be made to make further payments at any branch of any bank, or by bank order, to the Society's account, number 27584798 (sort code 60-17-27) at the National Westminster Bank Plc, 21 High Street, Reigate, RH2 9AD. National Girobank payments should be made to the Society's account No. 3051714.

Withdrawals

Unless otherwise stated within the terms of the account and the Terms and Conditions relating to Investments, withdrawals can be made on demand by cheque or telegraphic transfer (fee applies) up to £100,000, but for larger withdrawals we require one day's written notice. Cash withdrawals of up to £300 are permitted. For larger amounts a cash cheque can be drawn in banking hours and encashed at our specified bank.

Taxation

On 6th April 1991 the system for taxing interest paid by banks, building societies and other financial institutions was changed. You can now arrange for the interest on your accounts to be paid with no tax deducted (i.e. gross) if you are not liable to income tax. That is, if your total taxable income is less than your total tax allowance. Further details are available on request from the Society.

Passbook Entries

If your passbook has an entry which seems to be wrong, you should tell us as soon as possible so that we can resolve the matter.

The Financial Services Compensation Scheme

The Holmesdale Building Society is a participant in the Financial Services Compensation Scheme established under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000.

Payments under the Scheme are limited to a maximum of £35,000 of an investor's total shares and/or deposits. Most investors are covered, including individuals and small firms. A small number of categories of shares and deposits are not covered. Although most shares and deposits are denominated in sterling, all other currencies are covered. Further details are available on request from the Society.