Barclays / Woolwich mortgages

pingcat

I am applying for a Barclays / Woolwich mortgage nda am feeling hugely frustrated.

Everytime I ring up (minimum once a day) I'm told something different - yesterday I was promised the underwriter would instruct the valuation by today; today when I rang I'm told "I'm sorry madam, we are experiencing a backlog, what we told you yesterday no longer accurate and it will be by done by close of business monday".

I've also had an entirely unecessary 5 day delay because they needed to "confirm the addresses". No idea why as they had already had them both over the phone and in writing. They don't bother to call and ask you the questions but wait until you ring them, and then once I did & confirmed the addresses were correct, I'm back to the bottom of the 3 day queue for the application to be considered by the underwriter.

I've also never before come across an organisation that thinks it's acceptable to take 2 days to open their post, and then another 2 -3 days to process it!!!

Rant over!

Does anyone have any tips with how to deal with them?

KingElvis

Welcome to the wonderful world of mortgages.. it's all delays becuase they need to maintain the magic of the totally enjoyable process LOL

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Give it to a mortgage broker who then makes the paraplanner/admin deal with all that sh one t !!

jln_2

I waited 3 months for a mortgage application to be processed by The Woolwich

jeannieblue

Its Barclays/Woolwich that turned us down after convincing us everything would fine....

MB1919

I'd definitely employ the services of a broker to do the donkey work for you. I have a Woolwich mortgage, after having switched from A&L a couple of years ago, and it was a very smooth process.

originalmiscellany

I did our mortgage this time, but previously have used a broker. They are worth their weight in gold I have to admit!

2sides2everystory

I think the direct arm has been pretty much like this for a long time.

Does anyone have any tips with how to deal with them?

Might be too late now as it sounds like you have applied direct cutting out branch staff, but some of the most tenacious customer service oriented staff I have come across when arranging my own mortgages at Barlcays are the (dare I say?) older more senior mortgage advisers whose patina you may be able to recognise like the genuine article amongst the modern repro stuff. Whether there are any left now is a different question.

Thrugelmir

pingcat wrote: »

Everytime I ring up (minimum once a day)

Do you think that this will achieve something positive? Personally I know how I react to people who waste my time when at work.

If you want a personal banking service then you have to pay for it. If you don't then join the queue.

Your application will be processed in due course. As now that the summer holidays are over staffing levels will return to normal levels.

GMS

MB1919 wrote: »

I'd definitely employ the services of a broker to do the donkey work for you. I have a Woolwich mortgage, after having switched from A&L a couple of years ago, and it was a very smooth process.

The process for the client of any broker should be a smooth hassle free one. Not always the case for the broker but that's what we are there for, to take the lender grief and get the customer what they want.

picardygirl

We changed to Barclays mortgage late last year, and it was very simple to do. We dealt with the mortgage advisor in branch, and she done everything for us. She ticked the box to say we would like text messages at each process, and sure enough we got text messages to let us know what was going on ........ took about 10 days for things to start moving after we put the application in, but then things were done within a couple of days, received text message to say valuation received (within about 4 hours of valuation being done), then received message to say mortgage offer on way ...... received mortgage offer within 3 weeks off application. No complaints whatsoever, but i have heard some horror stories about them !

OP hope you get it all sorted soon.