West Bromwich Unethical Practices, Help

f1n_2

Just completing (trying) our mortgage with West Brom. Having already supplied 56 pages of information requested. They are still asking for even more information; for example they have referred to 3 payments made from my personal account statement. They want to know what the £40 was for, and they want to see the account that I transfered the money to. Despite telling them that the payments were made to a gas engineer for services a fire. They still want to see the gas engineers statements. Both my partner and myself have a good credit rating so we are perplexed we applied for the mortgage in Dec and we are still waiting despite obtaining a mortgage in principal in advance of making an offer.
How many/much questions can they ask ethically, I can't seem to find a code of practice. We are both very distressed, as we thought we were buying a house, and now are landlord wants us to sign another 12 month contract (we had to rent as our house sold too quickly, and couldn't find a house to buy) We may well end up homeless.
If anyone can help

kingstreet

Ethically? Why ethically?

They can request any information they feel they need to assist them in reaching a decision to lend to you, or not.

You may wish to consider taking your business elsewhere, if dissatisfied. Plenty of other lenders out there...

Your tenancy rolls onto a statutory periodic tenancy when the fixed term ends. You do not need to sign a new agreement. You should only give notice on your tenancy when you have exchanged contracts on your purchase and have an agreed/binding completion date.

Thrugelmir

Normally your bank statement details the payee. So the information should be apparent.

You wish to borrow a considerable sum of money. So a lender is entitled to verify the information provided. Around 13 in every 1,000 mortgage application in 2012 were fraudelent in some manner. This is expected to rise in 2013. So lenders are increasingly cautious when processing applications.

Poorlass

Hi F1n,

We have also been asked for a lot of paperwork by West Brom and have had to write several statements so hang on in there. I guess they do need to be sure that we are genuine applicants but I understand how stressful it can all be.

Initially we applied to HSBC about 4 weeks ago but they lost our paperwork and I called them to chase up everyday but no one could tell me what they had done with it. After 2 frustrating weeks we decided to apply to West Brom and have since been running backwards and forwards to the Post office to send documents by next day delivery.

HSBC have now given us a mortgage offer subject to valuation but I would rather wait for the West Brom one as it is cheaper & do not want to be stuck with an inefficient lender.

However to make matters worse our buyer after 4 months seems to be stalling so all the trouble might not have been worth it & might to put our flat back on the market and loose the house we want to buy.

Anyway good luck with your application and the purchase.

PL

opinions4u

There is nothing unethical about trying to establish your financial position before handing over tens of thousands of pounds.

Gary123456790

Lenders are being forced more than ever by the FSA to ensure borrowers are able to repay what they are being lent.

Limited checks on borrowers which lead to over-commitment and payment difficulties down the road is far more unethical and likely to lead to problems for the borrower, the bank and the whole country.

Gary.

maninthestreet

opinions4u wrote: »

There is nothing unethical about trying to establish your financial position before handing over tens of thousands of pounds.

so why do they need to see the bank account statement from the gas engineer? This request is clearly not reasonable.

kingstreet

I'd misread that.

They are asking to see the contractor's bank statement?

That's completely mental.

It should be perfectly acceptable for the applicant to produce an invoice/receipt for the work done to evidence the expenditure.

If the OP could let us know what form these payments took, it may be useful. There were three? Are they all for £40 and all to the same contractor? Debit card, cheques?

ValHaller

kingstreet wrote: »

I'd misread that.

They are asking to see the contractor's bank statement?

That's completely mental.

It should be perfectly acceptable for the applicant to produce an invoice/receipt for the work done to evidence the expenditure.

I am taking it that when OP refers to the "gas engineers statements", he means the bills. But to me this is just excessively nosy over a measly £40. I would feel inclined to go elsewhere.

Thrugelmir

ValHaller wrote: »

But to me this is just excessively nosy over a measly £40.

3 amounts of £40. The lender may suspect that the money is for something else.

Perhaps other transaction of similar nature previously as well.