Fixed 5 year re-mortgage deal mis-sold? Not getting 5 years!! Help?

AmyAndJames

Hi,

I am new to this forum, but I have been incensed by my latest mortgage deal and am wondering if anyone else has had the same issue or has any suggestions.

I started this process of taking a reasonable (to me) 5 year fixed deal with YBS in October. I used a local branch having determined the best mortgage beforehand. This was on the 14th October 2011. The branch gave me an key facts sheet showing a fixed rate period until 30th November 2016. YBS ballsed the application process up and instead of taking the "usual" 6-8 weeks to complete, I am still waiting now 12 weeks on.

Because of the delays, the mortgage will now start this week (with luck) or next but will still end on the 30th November 2016. I feel that I signed up for a 5 year deal but will get more than a month less than that. I have spoken to YBS but not yet to their complaints dept., but they say that this was explained to me in branch (not that I remember) and they appear to suggest it is standard practice. It seems like mis-selling, 5 years should be 60 months of the whole deal, not 58-and-a-bit months like I will now have. And I paid to apply for the mortgage!! (was cheaper to do this over 5 years).

Is this correct? Why shouldn't the mortgage start on day of completion - if you buy a house this is the case, so why not with a re-mortgage?

Can anyone help or suggest a way forward please?

Thanks for any suggestions in advance

James

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Because its a fixed tem until a date - not a fixed term from completion (i.e start) and this was clear in the KFI as you state yourself and to which the YBS branch presumably referred.

As to "paid to apply" I assume this is the £195 upfront fee rather than a full £995 fee (as you could/should pay the £800 balance at time of completion to protect your position should you not complete).

Difficult to comment on the 'ballsed up' bit as that is not really explaination of the circumstances. No lender gives any guarantee of time to offer/completion.

WestonDave

Its fairly common that the fixed term actually refers to a specified end date even though marketed in short hand as a X year deal. There are some exceptions - First Direct let me hold off completion for 6 months once accepted but will still give me a full 3 years (which I used because their variable rate was lower than the fix I had secured so it made sense to delay as long as possible whilst still getting maximum benefit from the fixed term).

You might get some joy from the complaints team if you can persuade them that because they took longer you've lost one month, but your chances aren't great and you certainly won't persuade them that its reasonable to hold them to completing it all within the 6 weeks from application to 1st December needed for the full 60 month term. However it will also depend on whether you've actually lost anything - if the rate you were paying was lower during the waiting period then you haven't actually lost anything. Often SVR's are lower than fixes hence this point.

dwsjarcmcd

Hi,
Yes this is fairly standard practice with lenders (although you can get mortgages that do run for 60 months from completion) and there are 2 main reasons for this. Firstly, YBS (along with everyone else) will raise the funds via the wholesale money markets and it is much easier to have a defined end date for the funds as pricing can be done with greater certainty. If you use x months from completion, it will be at a slightly different rate which will probably be higher.

The 2nd reason is more of a marketing reason, in that they will want their product in best buy tables and these tend to be in full years (1, 2, 5 etc) and they need to fit the product in these bands. To be fair, when launched it was for a full 5 years.

I don't think you can complain about this as you did get a Key Facts document showing the end date. What you can complain about is why the service has been so poor, which you don't expand on.

Wutang_2

Definitely missold, go on to the reclaim missold mortgages forum and there is a template waiting for you,

AmyAndJames

Thanks for your comments - even if I mis-read the fact that it has a fixed start date , it seems wrong to me and in my head at least, maybe a bit of mis-direction.

The fee was as Senior Paper Monitor states and the delays were due apparently to the product or our initial application being deleted and then not being able to be re-entered. Due to "high volumes of applications" it then took at least another week for this to be re-done on top of the original issues they had.

The difference in the monthly payments is about £200, hence my frustration - I realise that the process length is not guaranteed, but it sure is annoying.

The explanations were better here than I had been given previously, thanks. I think I will try the complaint path as you don't get anything unless you try, but we'll see how it goes.

James

kingstreet

TBH if you want a rate which is fixed for five years from completion, you go to Nationwide. If you want a rate with a fixed end date, you go to another lender, like YBS. Neither can guarantee how long it will take to process a mortgage.

How can you possibly know what the implications of this will be until December 2016 when the fix ends?

By all means complain about service ineptitude, but the angle about the end date is a loser for me...

Thrugelmir

AmyAndJames wrote: »

YBS ballsed the application process up and instead of taking the "usual" 6-8 weeks to complete, I am still waiting now 12 weeks on.

Where do you get the "usual" from?

How much of the delay was caused by YBS rather than the normal processes allied to the Xmas break.

somethingcorporate

Agreed, not worth complaining about the end date, it is written in black and white on the document that you signed.

Only slight angle is the delay caused by the "balls up" but depending what this is will depend on whether you will get anything.

_Andy_

There is no valid complaint so save yourself the hassle of writing a letter. The lender has done nothing wrong at all.
(As is usual with these threads, there is no "mis sale" whatsoever)