Abbey - Warning about their Criteria if you receive maintenance via the CSA

Dcakes

Hi all - I am new to posting on here to forgive me if I make a few initial errors on when/where and how. - Can someone tell me if the Abbey are really trying to not lend money ? I think they have finally hit being a total an utter joke. II have all my bank accounts with them - have had for 17 years, and so does my husband - but have really notice a dreadful decline in their service over the past few years

I thought I should let people know about Abbeys latest tatics for those looking for mortgages with this bank - especially if you are receiving maintenance for a child. Excuse the long post

Brief background, hubby and I currently with Abbey for our mortage and tied in for another 2 years. My job is relocating and so we are moving (Hubby and I work for the same company and he already commutes to the same office so it makes sense to move now). Been with our very large well known company 8 and 9 years respectfully and both in management positions

We are looking to port our current mortgage to the new property and borrow just under 4K more. We have a 15% deposit, are on very good salaries, and our credit check was fine. Its been a few weeks of hell with the Shabbey though - they initally wanted to decline is as I don't start my new role for another 2 weeks and said they wouldn't take my new - much higher salary - into account until then !!! Even thought its with the same employer and we had a letter from HR confirming the new role. After 2 weeks of chasing that seems to be acceptable now so affordability fine.

My hubby called this morning to find out what is going on (Its been 4 weeks of waiting as it is) and they they are currently declining our application as - and this is where it gets really really really ludicrous - I receive Maintenance from my ex - have done for 6 years via the CSA so all above board and documented. The Abbey have a copy of my yearly letter and schedule showing what I receive. He's never missed a payment since the schedule was set up. The Abbey have told us we do not need the maintenance for affordability, but because they know about it, they will decline the mortgage unless I get a letter from the CSA stating that if my ex defaults they will take the income at source !!!!!!!!!!

I have spoken to the CSA who - obviously - will not send a letter out stating this. They have pointed out it does state on the 2nd page of the payment schedule that should he default every effort will be made to take the money from his employer. I don't seem to have this so they are sending a copy out - but my guess is that it won't be acceptable. And it means we have another week wait once the Abbey receive the letter

My husband has had enough - he's been constantly on the phone to them over the past few weeks and finally had enough and walked into a branch and spoken to a manager who is looking into it for us - even they think this is going way over the top.

Its been a hellish 4 weeks. Survey has been completed on our house but we still don't have a mortgage offer for the house we are buying and may have to pull out and rent. Which, thank you very much. we will then have to hand over £6K ERC to the Abbey !

Just a note as well - they said they now wouldn't take Child Benefit or Tax Credit into account as a child gets older and that money is not replaced - however they do take mainentance into account - errrmm surely they stops around the same time as the child ben !!!

Not really looking for advice - although any would be nice - but thought people should be aware of this

emmahane

hi, sorry to hear that you have been through all of this, but i must say it sounds like you are being played by the abbey, we have just had our mortgage offer from then, 2 days ago in fact and they HAVE taken my tax credit into account and i can assure you without them my salary falls way short, hope this helps

Dcakes

I think it depends on who you speak to from what I can gather. I have no idea why they would want to play us - we've always been really good customers with not a single default. So now your reply has made me wonder what were doing wrong and why they are treating us differently. I am taking a guess that it may be the fact we have a smaller deposit than some, but 15% is still a hefty amount - especially down south. Our Tax credit is not a huge amount as we are both on pretty high salaries so it would not make a massive difference anyway - but the mortgage advisor on the phone said they'd been advised not to take this or child ben now !!

Hubby has just been into the branch and been given much better and different information. The branch manager and mortgage advisor has looked at our info and fail to see the problem, they are going to have a look at it and see what he can sort out. (We've been dealing with the guys over the phone which just adds to the stress)

dimbo61

16,000 mortgage applications were turned down this month alone !
Getting much tougher to get a mortgage full stop.
Hope you get sorted long term fix sounds good !!

emmalita

Have spoken to my mortgage broker in last few days and when i mentioned Abbey he said avoid at all costs at the moment as they are finding any excuse not to lend and the applications that have been accepted have taken around 7 wks,apparantley they have a massive backlog aswell.

Dcakes

Thanks for the replies guys. I am really not surprised by your comments. As I said I usd to be a real Abbey supporter but they have gone more and more downhill - had loads of problems with money missing from our accounts, it took them 10 weeks to produce a debit card in my married name !!!

The problem we have is that we are tied to them for 2 years and cannot afford to take the 6k ERC hit and then still do the 15% deposit. I hate the thought of renting - having had a mortgage for 16 years I just see it as dead money and you never feel the house is your home.

However, we had an update today. Someone else from their mortgage dept called tonight not realising my hubby had spoken to someone this morning. Apparently they will not accept CSA maintenance anymore only anything done via a court order which is truly bonkers - as someone rightly says an excuse not to lend. But during the conversation they mentioned we were out on affordabililty by about £60 a month, hubby was very surprised as with our salaries there is no way this is the case - we should in fact be wide open on affordability even with our existing outgoings and debt. So mortgage guy read out our joint salaries which were too low by about £ 800 a month !!!! Apparently the man last week had not sent the revised salaries through properly and it was still showing my much lower current salary. (this is on top of them losing the application twice already !)

Hubby went a bit mad as its been a week now since this should be done and we are not going to go back to the bottom of the list. So mortgage guy has promised he will speak directly with u/w tomorrow to update it to the correct figures - we've been told this should now go through.

But as we are not expecting too much from them and I feel fairly certain they will find some other reason not to let us port the mortgage - hubby is keeping his appointment with a branch manager/mortgage advisor tomorrow to do it face to face.

This is way too much stress. On top of all this I have the move to a new town, new job and new schools to deal with !!

luckyfool

emmalita wrote: »

Have spoken to my mortgage broker in last few days and when i mentioned Abbey he said avoid at all costs at the moment as they are finding any excuse not to lend and the applications that have been accepted have taken around 7 wks,apparantley they have a massive backlog aswell.

It depends. They are picking and choosing who they want to lend to primarily based on ltv. I have a client whose Abbey mortgage went to offer 48 hours after the valuation and within a week of application (the ltv was under 50%).

If you are borrowing over 75%, especially over 80% then you are much much more likely to find them giving you the runaround (as in this case). Thats just my tuppenceworth.

Dcakes

HI Lucky fool - but do you find them actually giving out mortgages to anyone with over 80%. Why advertise deals which you won't actually sell. We've been told (off the record) by one abbey advisor that noone is being given the 10% mortgages even though they are advertised - so its just to keep the government happy then by "showing" they do have these deals. God help First Time Buyers !

We're not moving just on a whim or because we feel like a bigger house - we're moving because we have to. We'd be happy to stay in our current property but we have to for my job as commuting is not an option when I have my daughter to get to school. So thanks to the banks lending so irresponsibly in the past - those of us who have always paid their bills but don't happen to have £100K sitting around are being penalised

The stress is killing me - not eating or sleeping at all. Luckily I have a very relaxed husband

Dan_1976

Depends how you look at it. The problem with this case is inconsistency. Not taking CSA payment unless court ordered is not that unusual, CSA payments are meant to be for the care of the children as are tax credit and child tax credits or whatever we call them (Not wanting to open the what CSA payments are for, I know they need a roof over their heads). Lenders dont have to use CSA, they also cant use income that your not earning, sounds crazy but in 2006 you may have got this no probs, but things have changed.

Abbey use their own affordability figures, they will use cost of living for x kids and x adults in the house and its always more than what it seems in real life. You say you have more than £60 Abbey's figures say less. If you have less than £100 spare cash they cannot use discretion. Your being caught up in policy and at the mo lenders dont want to step out of policy and take risks. Your also dealing with a lender that is losing its face, staff and it probably in a right mess.

I know that dont help but a different point of view can sometimes make things clearer. ALthough I have now confused myself!

Dcakes

HI Dan_1976
Sorry I am probably not making myself clear

The CSA issue, tax credit and child ben are one issue - as you say they used to take it into account but now they don't so we have to accept that - they did last year but things have changed so much. (Although other abbey customers have had them taken into account as you can see from previous posters above)

The main issue for us is based purely on our salaries. The only reason the maintenance question came up this morning was because we discovered this evening they have incorrectly used my old salary and (off their own backs) were trying to include the maintenance to assure affordability - all because noone had looked at the information provided which clearly showed my new salary. I start my new role in 2 weeks in same company on a much much higher salary - good promotion LOL and their figure is £800 less based on our salaries alone - if you then took the maintenance, child ben and tax credit they are down by over £1300 a month.

So just working on our salaries - These are not our figures as you never know who is on here - but as an example they have our take home pay at £3000 a month, when it is in fact going to be £ 3800 in 2 weeks - this is without inc any additional income from the other sources. So they told us we were £60 down on affordability when in fact we will be £740 a month over - does that make sense ? If you want to add the other income on we'd be over by £1240 a month on affordability

Basically the abbey mortgage advisor was supposed to have submitted it based on my new salary as that is what I will be earning prior to moving but he has now sent it over incorrectly with my current lower salary twice and each time we go back to the bottom of underwritings list !!! He was supposed to resubmit it along with the letter from my HR department two weeks ago - this wasn't done and he was supposed to do it again last week. We now have one of the managers promising this will be correctly resubmitted tomorrow - he confirmed they do not need to take into account any of the additional income as our salaries more than cover it and he will speak directly with underwriting - we have also been assured this is the only thing stopping the application - but I have my doubts


PS - with regards to not taking maitenance/child ben etc into account - I find it amusing that they look at cost of living for x amount of adults and kids, but then don't even take into account things like child ben which is supposed to be towards the cost of your childrens outgoings.

Dan_1976

NOt sure what the point about the tax credits etc is for then.

Although they are using a correct figure as your not being paid your higher salary yet, I know you have a letter and I know its pain in the @@@e but in 2009 local government are looking at shedding staff let alone private companies. I would not blame any lender for being a little edgy. Then again, they could have handled your case a lot better, they seem to be getting 5he Shabby tag back!