Natwest - No exchange tomorrow because funds not through

Pinkys204

We saw the house of our dreams, got our mortgage, tomorrow we are, well 'were' supposed to be exchanging contracts and getting the keys, but because of Natwest this now seems unlikely.

My partner and I were both paying the deposit from our sepatate savings, his were tied up in a bond with Natwest. He was told 7-10 days for funds to be released. So he dutifully went into his branch on Monday 28th of June at 9am to hand over a letter to release his bond..... he called to check on the progress yesterday, and after being shunted around by their call centre he was told that they didn't know as it goes to India! Worse than that they said that the bonds department did not receive the letter until the Friday?? This is so frustrating and seems all wrong. So 10 days are up tomorrow, we seem unable to get a straight answer from anyone.

Our worry is we will now incur additional fees from our solicitor, I feel through no fault of our own.

Any advice would be appreciated

and their slogan is 'Natwest Helpful Banking' unhelpful more like!!

lindens

Today is only 6 days from 28 May ( I presume you mean May).
7 days is tomorrow and 10 days is next Tuesday.
When banks talk about "days" they will always be talking about business days I imagine

marliepanda

It's hasn't been ten working days.

I feel for you but you did 'cut it fine' by timing it to happen on the last day of an estimated timeframe (which you appear to have misjudged) why was it left so late to remove this money?

I am afraid any extra fees would be your fault, not the banks.

Pinkys204

oops, thanks for pointing that out I meant to type May, tomorrow will be 10 working/bank days after the letter was handed into the branch.

pinkteapot

No, it won't be. Monday and Tuesday were bank holidays. There were five business days last week but only three this week. So Tuesday will be 10 business days.

System

Pinkys204 wrote: »

oops, thanks for pointing that out I meant to type May, tomorrow will be 10 working/bank days after the letter was handed into the branch.

No it won't. As pointed out, 10 working days from 28 May is 12 June. Weekends and the 4th & 5th don't count

Pinkys204

Well we put in our written offer 5 weeks ago and it took 3 weeks to process our mortgage, we only had 5 weeks to get everything in place.

Pinkys204

I assumed when they say 7-10 'banking days' that they factor these things in to their times? Oh well I must be wrong!

sharpee

Banking is always based on working days.

If you've had 5 weeks why didn't you transfer the money out of the bond during the5 weeks instead of leaving it till the last moment?

pinkteapot

"Bank Holiday"

AlexMac

Really difficult-my sympathies. And post-mortem doesn't help now.

Have you tried the obvious; asking Natwest to resolve the (arguably jointly-caused) problem by offering you a short-term loan or an overdraft, secured against your bond with them? They can only say no, but it may be worth a face-to-face chat as they're rediscovering the value of Branch-based service now;

a far cry from the days when they centralised everything to remote call centres some 10+ years ago (and lost me as a mortgage customer as a result when, after in-principle agreement to a loan by a kid in the call-centre, they gave me it with a 100% 'retention' - ie gave me zero £! So I had to find a more flexible lender- a BSoc with local branch-based services, who delivered a loan in 2 weeks. And that after I'd banked with Natwest for 30 years!).

Natwest also refused to help when I had a similar but bigger problem to yours many years ago when, in the days prior to BACS, another lender's cheque was delayed in the post. Unsurprisingly, as it wasn't their fault or problem, Natwest laughed when I asked for £multi-Ks overnight- BUT... I batted it back to my solicitor- who pulled a big loan in his firm's name out of a hat; in fact I assume that as most conveyancing solicitors must have so much cash washing around on overnight deposit, the Banks would bend over for them. So is that also worth a try?

If both actions fail- at least you've tried; and will have to wait; sorry. Best wishes