Error by lender, can I claim back costs?

tek-monkey

I'll keep this quick. My lender today informed me, after 3 months of house buying stress, that they actually made a mistake on my form and I fail their affordability checks. Since this I have instructed a solicitor, had a survey and a further drain survey, all of which I would obviously not have done had the lender not made a mistake.

Can I claim my costs back off them?

foreversummer

I think you'll have to give a little more detail to go on, then no doubt someone will be able to help.

Foreversummer

tek-monkey

OK, seems they entered a few details wrong when they calculated my mortgage. One thing was the fact that I am a FTB, whereas they seem to have said I wasn't. They also seem to have entered incorrect information about the SO scheme I am using (which BTW is only open to FTBs).

They now say that I don't meet their affordability calculations, despite mortgage/loan/phone bill/motorbike insurance etc. coming in at less than 50% of my take home pay. I get £1350 a month, leaving me over £650 a month for actual house bills and food.

I can easily afford this, my rental place is actually £70pm more expensive plus has awful insulation so I spend £140pm on gas/elec! Instead I have spent almost £1500 now that I could have saved towards a deposit, and I have only spent this because they said I could have the mortgage

missile

It is not clear from your post, did they make you an offer and then withdraw it?

If you have lost money as a direct result of an error on their part then I would suggest you ought to be able to claim. Write a formal complaint.

Whether you feel you can afford it or not is irrelevant. It is entirely at the discretion of the lender and they do not have to give you a reason for declining to offer.

tek-monkey

Yes, the offer was there. We were just waiting on one final piece of paper, which was supplied on Thursday (an idemnity policy to cover an extension). Because it has taken just over 90 days to get everything sorted though they decided to check my rating again, and noticed they'd made mistakes initially. Because of those mistakes I am no longer able to have the mortgage.

As for my costs, without the lender saying I could have the mortgage I would not have instructed the solicitor nor organised the survey. I certainly wouldn't have had the extra drain survey that they insisted I get.