Unfair Booking fee from Coventry

holly_hobby

Of course, in general, I agree absolutely C.

If however you had pre-placed the case and been given the green light to submit by the UW via your BDM, with all relevant data disclosed as part of the pre-app agreement, which was verified and unchanged at UW stage (notwithstanding something the UW wants that no one could have forseen or thought to discuss, as with Conrads BTL case), you could, I believe (and having prev done so in another life) successfully argue for the refund of any fee incurred as a result of the already pre-agreed submission.

TBH IF the broker was aware of the salary sacrifice situ (and this is a basic issue lets face it), yet failed to top and tail this with the lender, already knowing and commenting that affordability was tight (so little leeway if the UW discounted the SS from income), then in my prof opinion, he hasn't met the remit of his role and responsibility to the client.

And lets face it we do this pre-app placement calls to ultimately avoid the phone call and fall out to the client, from a failed app that we've advised should go though without issue - thats of course if the adviser has impressed upon the client that their full disclosure won't prejudice their app, but instead will give them the chance to make sure its presented both correctly and to the most appropriate lender first time (if of course there is a home for it !)

Of course if the OP didn't disclose/mention the SS arrangement with their broker, either because they didn't feel it was important, or otherwise ( and we've all been there, where you get a surprise decline due to non-disclosure), then as I said prev, there really is no basis for the OP to remonstrate with the broker or to expect a refund of any associated fees (never mind a reservation one).

I've tried to argue both sides of the fence, and hope this ultimately helps the OP put this to bed.

Holly x

droiderm

kingstreet wrote: »

In my experience, a lender may decline to include childcare vouchers in income where salary sacrifice is taking place, but would likewise not factor childcare costs into the affordability calculation.

The end result would be the same as your income being increased to take into account the vouchers, but then the costs being deducted.

ie £500 per month salary sacrifice has the same impact as a £500 per month childcare bill on your bank statement.

Is that the case with Coventry?

I would disagree. 500 per month salary sacrifice would have the same impact as £500 + taxable benefit coming from your bank statement.

I don't understand the detail of what most of you guys are talking about, but it would seem to be in the interest of the lender, that if an applicant has child care costs, they should come from salary sacrifice as it actually costs less.

You would imagine some common sense should be applied in these circumstances.

kingstreet

£500 x 12 = £6000 x 4x salary multiple = £24,000 lost from max mortgage.

A £6,000 deduction from gross income has exactly the same end result.

droiderm

I understand that, but the £500 worth of childcare doesn't actually cost that when done in salary sacrifice.

So in reality it might be costing £400 from their net salary.

If they didn't do it via salary sacrifice it would cost them £500 from their net salary. There is a cost saving to do it that way. You would imagine a lender would prefer that?

kingstreet

Ok. If that's the case, yes, that would be different.

I'm not too concerned about the absolutes of the example I used. I'm merely trying to explain that the deduction of childcare costs will take place one way or the other and that if Coventry was deducting from income and deducting again for affordability as an outgoing, it would make the situation doubly worse.

droiderm

It would. Sorry just ignore my autistic tendencies

kingstreet

You're forgiven.