Britannia - false advertising? HELP!

ILW

If you are not happy with the deal, take your business elsewhere.

becky85_2

We have had a similar problem with our Britannia mortgage. We had an offer accepted for £130,000 (which we thought was a bargain as the asking price was a lot higher) but Britannia said there were some problems with the house, and that in its current state it was only worth £125,000. We were told over the phone that we could either re-negotiate the asking price with the vendor (to £125,000) or that they would offer the full amount but with £6,5000 on a retainer which we could receive when the work to the house was completed.
They said that the valuation report needed to be checked and referred to an underwriter before we could see it. This took nearly a week, and they then said that they would only offer an 85% mortgage rather than the 90% we had applied for and that we would also have to have a reduced offer accepted by the vendors. We managed to scrape the 15% together with much difficulty and called the company to advise we would try to negotiate a lower price with the vendor, at this point they told us that as well as getting a lower offer accepted and putting down a 15% deposit, we would also have to have numerous reports done on the property, as as a result they may decide they also wanted to retain £6,500 anyway! There had been no mention of this previously other than if we wanted to have reports done to try and persuade them to offer us 90%. There is no way we can afford around £1000 of reports as well as the 15% deposit and then possibly a further retainer.
The goal posts keep moving with Britannia, you meet their demands and they change them. I really hope both of you succeed in getting the offers you want, but we have pretty much given up.