Woolwich Mortgages - Pls post your current experiences

ginger_nuts

I had a woolwich open plan account for two years .I never had a problem .I changed to Halifax (who I hated ) and this week back to Woolwich .the change from woolwich was really quick ,as I didn't sign the paperwork I expected it to take a while ,I was done in less than a week after I signed the paperwork .

alfiesmum

We took out a 10 yr fixed rate with the woolwich in Feb of this year, and had few problems. updated regularly on the process via text messages. Saw the adviser on Friday, valuation done Tuesday, paperwork received,signed and returned to them on the following Friday. First offer received had wrong amount on, but one phone call and it was sorted. I didn't wait in any queue, and was dealt with politely, quickly by a UK based call centre. Hope that helps?

Hurdler

Currently have a Barclays Flex tracker and if I go down the buy-to-let route, I was considering their residential tracker rates and BTL rates too.
I posted elsewhere recently - there seems to be an issue with backlogs with Barc-wich - I paid off one of my flex tracker sub-accounts in April and it took them days to credit it back... but to be fair to them, they got the redemption statement out, the call centre staff I've always spoken to seem to be UK based and they did backdate it (seeing as I'd paid extra for a CHAPS credit).

The only bad thing I've had with them happened yesterday when querying how to do the calculation for repayment mortgages based on amount borrowed.
The Mortgage Advisor just told me to use online calculators 'cos the computer does it all. Didn't help for wanting to feed an equivalent calculation into a spreadsheet so I had to get happy with remedial math and a calculator!!
The lady I spoke to seemed to only work out what my repayment/IO sums would be based on the mortage amounts and couldn't actually articulate any real answers to questions about the suitability of the mortgage for my circs and catches/implications for each/either, which did concern me a touch. That being said - the blokey I spoke to before knew his stuff...

Ligge

I recently tried to get a mortgage from the woolwich and I would recommend everybody keeps well clear, this has to be the worst company I have ever dealt with, it is not worth anybody even trying to get the indian call center staff to deviate from their pre-programmed responses, saying things they know will keep you happy and get you off the phone so they can then have another caller, but not actually fixing any of the issues you called about
I have spent more than 10 hours on the phone to the call enter in the last two weeks, I have had the call center staff put the phone down on me three times, I have been promised accellerated service, as the entry date was looming, but nothing done.
In the End I had to call back the origional mortgage adviser in the Cardiff office, who managed to fix the problems with 1 day to spare for my entry date, unfortuanately I am tied for three years now, or i would back out immediately as i really do not want to give the woolwich any of my money, buut the early repayment fee is holding me back form this.
I would advise anybody to STAY WELL CLEAR do not use the Woolwich mortgage service I have never been under so much stress as I have in the last 6 weeks, the whole application took 12 weeks, I was promised it in 6 weeks, I had to pay for two surveys as the first one was deemed unacceptable, it was carried out by the same survey company, never ever again will I use Barclays or the Woolwich for anything ever.

tiggerjj

I have just exchanged on the house I am buying, with a Barclays offset mortgage, the adviser in the branch has been helpful and always contacted me within a day of my email to him, helpful when everything had to be put on hold for a problem with the deeds, then when i asked him to get things moving again, the survey and offer were done within a week.
Havent got the offset account linked yet but so far so good, in my experience

fabs35

I've had a really good experience too - 2 weeks from the initial telephone application to receiving the mortgage offer! Admittedly I did constanting call them requesting that the case be escalated due to a nervous vendor - without doing this you could add a couple of days I guess.

Esurv carried out the valuation which came in at the purchase price - report was e-mailed to me (again, I had requested this to avoid waiting for it in the post) the next day.

I would definitely recommend the woolwich!

Henhouse

My Woolwich Mortgage application hell.

“The Right of Abode is conferred on the following Commonwealth citizens and British subjects born before 1983 with a UK-born mother”

We have been within the application process with Woolwich for a joint mortgage for approximately five weeks now. Here are the issues my partner has been put through. I have redeemed my existing mortgage to port across to our new home.

Woolwich prossessing office lost paperwork within the second week. Passport page Right of abode notarised and signed by a Barclays Branch, as requested by Woolwich underwriters.

Three weeks passed in order to get new documentation processed through the relevant Woolwich departments.

We are at the end and unless we are calling the Underwriters we would know nothing about the status of our application.

We are in the fifth week, I have a headache, nausea and £7 less credit on my phone, but I think I have a commitment that the senior underwriter will be done with our case by COB tomorrow? That being the case the offer will be in the mail on Thursday? This is beyond a joke. I just have this awful feeling.

I’ve just spent a little time on the government’s immigration website triple checking my rights. FYI, my right of abode is based on the fact that my mum was a British citizen when I was born and that I was a Commonwealth citizen. Those facts together give me the unrevokable right to abode in the UK. The certificate is not the right but only the proof of the right, issued upon request (and payment) by the applicant (me). In the same way that you don’t cease to be British when your passport expires, I don’t cease to have right of abode, but will cease to hold physical proof of the fact if I don’t request (and pay for) re-issue of the certificate. I can only have the right revoked if "the Secretary of State thinks it would be conducive to the public good for the person to be excluded or removed from the United Kingdom". And I think that’s rather unlikely.

The Woolwich does not have the right what so ever to refuse me the loan on the basis of my nationality or entitlement to live here. This issue I have described is causing such a problem as the Underwriters at Woolwich don't seam to know how to resolve this.

Now I’m feeling confident!

I’ve just remembered that I have a scanned copy of my right of abode certificate saved, so had a look at it. It specifically references the British Nationality Act and section of the Act that applies to me, i.e. it makes specific reference to the clause that says my right of abode is based on my age, Commonwealth citizenship and mother’s Britishness. The Immigration Act clearly states in section 1 clause 4.1(b) that the right is inherent, irrevocable unless I become a criminal, and the certificate is not the right but simply an evidence of the right.

Colin, who comes from Brisbane, said he got his first mortgage here when he had exactly the same status as me (Certificate of ROA in Australian passport) and never had any questions asked by the bank.

It looks like we’ve got the work experience kid doing our mortgage!

Silveralice

We took out an openplan mortgage with the Woolwich/Barclays last July - they lost the first mortgage payment (cheque), and it took 2 more attempts to actually get it credited to our account: then they didn't link it properly to our new Barclays account and it took a couple of months to get the interest offset working. However, since then it's all been working fine. The main problem for us has been that there have been a whole host of issues and niggles with the linked Barclays account - dreadful service even though we are Premier account holders and therefore supposedly getting personal attention (joke). I won't go into details and go off topic, but it would be the Barclays side of it that would make me think twice if I was doing this again.

StillSkint

We applied for a mortgage with Woolwich/Barclays and were turned down over a £101 debt that was 13 years old, despite the fact that as soon as we knew that was on my credit file we paid it off. The application took two hours in a tiny airless room, with about half an hour spent on the mortgage the rest of it pushing quotes down our throats for everything from health insurance to unemployment insurance.

When we realised there was a problem, we asked if we could find out and let them know what was causing the problem and were told that unless the adviser was around to answer the phone when the underwriters called to enquire about the debt it was highly unlikely she would be able to get through to them on the phone to talk to them as they were so busy and they would probably just reject the application! Talk about making you feel unimportant.......

Ditch_Crawler

There was recently a thread on here on which several 'professionals' acknowledged that a standard condition of any Woolwich mortgage was that that the borrower would agree to pay off all previous debt (however small or large) within 30 days of completion. This clause, apparently, cannot be removed under any circumstances.

The 'advice' of some of those 'professionals' was that borrowers should not hesitate to sign up to the condition because the Woolwich would never actually bother to check.

Bollox!!!