Misled by Mortgage Broker

betmunch

QuincyBella wrote: »

The weird thing is the paperwork we signed backed up the brokers' assertion that we needed to renew our deal. Our actual mortgage term expires at the end of this month, but out advisor told us it expired in October (reasoning that we first got our agreement in principle in October). We signed this paperwork once he had told us this. When I questioned him about they could have gotten this wrong he said it must have been an administrative error.

No way, not having that at all!!!!

Its not an admin error at all! Nationwide offer a 2 year fix, not a fix until a specific date. The 2 years starts on draw down, but the advisor has taken it from the date of the AIP.

That is the error of the advisor and no mistake!

QuincyBella

betmunch wrote: »

No way, not having that at all!!!!

Its not an admin error at all! Nationwide offer a 2 year fix, not a fix until a specific date. The 2 years starts on draw down, but the advisor has taken it from the date of the AIP.

That is the error of the advisor and no mistake!

So (and I acknowledge that we have signed a contract so it is legally binding) would you think Countrywide would take an request for our money to be refunded seriously? I can't help but feel I have been fobbed off.

betmunch

If I got a letter of complaint explaining that you only paid the £99 booking fee on the insistance that the CW advisor said it was time to remortgage, even though on more than one occassion you said it wasnt I dont think I would have a leg to stand on.

I would pay that out ASAP to avoid you going to the FOS which would result in a £500 charge to defend a complaint.

QuincyBella

That's very useful, Betmunch, thank you. I honestly don't want to get the broker in trouble but we are a young couple and £99 is quite a lot of money to us.

betmunch

dont worry about getting them in trouble, if CW have any idea of the principals of TCF they will give the "advisor" some training on the matter!

FraudBuster

QuincyBella wrote: »

That's very useful, Betmunch, thank you. I honestly don't want to get the broker in trouble but we are a young couple and £99 is quite a lot of money to us.

Why?

Sounds like churning to me.

DVardysShadow

QuincyBella wrote: »

That's very useful, Betmunch, thank you. I honestly don't want to get the broker in trouble but we are a young couple and £99 is quite a lot of money to us.

You are far too soft. If he should not have taken the £99 off you, then it should be settled in your favour. And if it is settled in your favour, let him take whatever is coming to him. You are not doing him or his future customers any favours by letting him off the hook like this.

And a bit of bloodymindedness about these sorts of things will probably help you not to get caught again. Your charmingly gentle and trusting outlook may end up costing you a serious amount of money in the future.

Simon_gloster

U

QuincyBella wrote: »

We originally arranged our mortgage through Countrywide mortgage consultants. We were happy with the service we received and had no problems.

Two years after our original agreement in principle was agreed another Countrywide representative called me and said that our mortgage term would be ending very soon and that to avoid going onto a variable rate we would need to renegotiate. I expressed surprise at this as we were only 13 months into our mortgage at that time, nonetheless I was assured that it was necessary to meet with the broker to compare new mortgage deals. I freely admit I am a novice at all things financial and so took the broker's word for it though I did continue to question what he said when we met. I was shown paperwork with expiry dates which looked like our mortgage deal was going to end in the next few months.

Eventually we settled for a Nationwide offer, this involved a move away from our previous provider, Santander. During the numerous and lengthy consultation sessions with the mortgage broker he seemed far more concerned with selling us PPI than he did with finding a workable mortgage rate for us. I would say that looking at PPI took up 70% of the sessions. This was irritating as he continued to try to sell us things we had categorically said we did not want or need.

When our new mortgage deal was about to be finalised I received a telephone call from the Nationwide legal team telling me that Santander had informed them we would be liable to pay several thousand pounds worth of early termination fees if we were to proceed. It turned out that it had been far too early to negotiate a new mortgage, as I had suggested all along. We had already paid a £99 deposit at this time.

I called the broker to discuss this, but he was very blase and merely said "Well obviously don't proceed then". When I asked about the deposit he said that there was no chance of getting it back.

I know that in the scheme of things £99 is not a great deal of money, and I am lucky it is not a lot more, however I do feel misled and generally not well-served by this broker. Do I have a case against him? I do not want compensation but I would like my money back.

P.S Apologies for the lengthy post![/QUrOTE]


I have read through this entire thread, and I do feel for you.


I can picture it now, the consultant knowing you had charges to remortgage too early, sweating their trying to disturb you taking out their commission inflatef insurance.

Im glaf you stood your ground on all matters.

£99 fee issue is making me seeth with anger. Pursue this if you can. At least the sols spotted it.

Please cut all ties with them, the consultant was clearly given an ultimatum, sell insurance to them or get anothef job. Mortgage is the baggage for them.

As you can see I'm a fan.

QuincyBella

DVardysShadow wrote: »

You are far too soft. If he should not have taken the £99 off you, then it should be settled in your favour. And if it is settled in your favour, let him take whatever is coming to him. You are not doing him or his future customers any favours by letting him off the hook like this.

And a bit of bloodymindedness about these sorts of things will probably help you not to get caught again. Your charmingly gentle and trusting outlook may end up costing you a serious amount of money in the future.

I do feel really naive, but it was the fact that when we asked if our mortgage dates ran from the date the AIP was offered rather than our completion date, he said that that must have been the case. The previous CW representative really knew her stuff and worked hard on our case to ensure everything went smoothly. I think that's partly the reason why I trusted what this guy was saying.

He was pretty rigid when I asked if there was any chance of getting the deposit back, either from Nationwide (long-shot but I thought it might be more palatable to him) or from Countrywide as a gesture of goodwill for all the time we had wasted on a mortgage deal which wasn't even going to be around when we did actually need it.

I hear what you're saying about being careful in future, but it's pretty difficult to know what you don't know if that makes any sense? I'm pretty careful with money (no overdraft, no credit cards etc) and only took out the mortgage because we had to. I won't be getting involved in the stock market in a hurry!

The only other thing I am worried about in all of this is that Countrywide originally set out to charge us an arrangement fee. I was never really happy with this, but in our original deal we took a cashback offer which covered it. Looking back, it was probably a "giving with one hand, and taking with the other" kind of deal but we thought it was a good idea at the time... Is there any way they could seek payment for the work undertaken, even though the mortgage was never finalised?