Woolwich Mortgages - Pls post your current experiences

Martin81162

We applied for a Woolwich mortgage through a broker in March this year. They told us that were going to value the property but we heard nothing back. They then told our broker that they had decided to do a manual approval of the mortgage. Then a couple of weeks later they rejected the application but my broker could not get any sense out of the indian call centre, so we are still unsure why they turned us down.
About 8 weeks later, we got a letter from the woolwich asking for a load of documents that we had already provided and telling us that we only had a couple of weeks left to complete the application. The odd thing about this was that the amount quoted in the letter was roughly half of what we applied for so of no use to us at all.
Since then we have had two letters saying that they are going take £150 from us for not completing the application process.
I tried to phone their complaints number 0800 282390 quoted on the bottom of their letter only to be told that they don't handle mortgage complaints.

Would I recommend the Woolwich to anyone?

No

SsirhC

I have an existing mortgage with Barclays/Woolwich which was a 5 year fixed rate mortgage which ended in March this year and then reverted to their SVR. The fixed rate deals had improved at Barclays recently so we decided to re-fix our mortgae at a lower interest rate again. When we visited the local Barclays branch and spoke to the mortgage advisor, she completed all the necessary paperwork and informed us that all Barclays mortgages were being transferred to the Woolwich and that because of this we had 'apply' for a fixed rate mortgage, so away we went expecting the application to be a matter of in-house paper shuffling when to our surprise a letter arrived on a friday advising that our application has been closed and that we are to be charged £150 for the application being rejected for insufficient income!
I am so confused as my income has increased since my original application over 10 years ago and the mortgage amount as remained the same.
However they are still happy for us to still remain on the SVR and
have to pay approx £225 more than if I was on the fixed rate - I believe that this is just a case of profiteering at my expense.
Also I can't get any answers from the call centre!!

Knitgit

Where to start??!!! My partner and I applied to the Woolwich to remortgage our property as we needed further funds to do it up. We were told that it would take approx 4 weeks back in May 2010. WE ARE STILL WAITING!! Our contact at the Woolwich has been next to useless, never replying to emails and impossible to contact - in addition he has mislaid various documents we sent him etc etc and the solicitors (Optima legal) haven't ben much better - very poor communication and now at the 11th hour they have suddenly realised they need yet more documentation from us after they made a mistake.
Our case has been swapped around from underwriters based in Mumbai to 'advance' underwriters based in UK, none of whom seem to communicate with anyone else.
Does anyone know how (when we finally receive the funds) we can make an official complaint?
:mad:

hillcats

We had a Woolwich Openplan Offset mortgage for about 4 years until 2007, to be fair we didnt really have any great issues and enjoyed banking with the Woolwich. Then Barclays came along and FORCED us over to that brand-name for our current account and savings accounts.

We would never bank with Barclays if they were the last bank on the planet so moved all of our finances Mortgage, savings and current account over to intelligent finance and once again very happy with minimal teething problems...

getmore4less

hillcats wrote: »

Then Barclays came along and FORCED us over to that brand-name for our current account and savings accounts.

There was no requirement to actualy use any of those accounts for your banking other that the offsetting of money against the mortgage.

What rate did you give up to go to IF.

LXGB

Absolutely awful service!

I phoned the Woolwich to arrange a rate switch 3 weeks ago. It was going to cost about £1,500 (ERC) to get out of the existing product I was tied in to; but the better interest rate on the new product meant I'd make that back in saved interest in less than 2 years.

I received the mortgage declaration a couple of days later, signed it and returned it with a cheque for the ERC. I even wrote "ERC for Account Number: **-*****-****" on the back of the cheque.

Then things started to go wrong...

After hearing nothing after a week, I phoned the Woolwich and was told that everything was in order and my application had been passed on to the processing centre.

The next day I checked my online banking facility. The ERC cheque had been cashed and my outstanding mortgage balance had been reduced by the exact amount as the ERC cheque. I phoned them again to check if this was normal, they said it was.

The next day I received a letter thanking me for my recent communication and asking if I would like to proceed with the rate switch. More alarm bells, so I phoned them again. After being messed about by the overseas call centre, (who were blatantly just reading a script to me and not understanding my questions) I got through to a UK call centre who assured me that everything was fine and I could disregard this letter.

Two days later I received a letter confirming that my "overpayment" of £1,500 had been applied to the capital balance of my account.

I then spent nearly 3 hours on the phone to India and the UK trying to resolve this error. I raised a complaint and was given a reference number. That was 3 days ago and so far the balance of my mortgage has not changed at all. Neither have I had any updates from the Woolwich.

Today I phoned the "dedicated complaints handling line" number I was given by the person who processed my complaint. On each of my four attempts a recorded message said, "Sorry we are busy, please try later".

Shockingly bad service!

stevenc1979

I have to agree the service is shocking. so sick of ringing the Indian call centre everyday to be told call back in 24 to 48 hours and we'll have more info for you

I applied to port my current mortgage and borrow a further 97k, everything went through ok and I was asked to send in my last payslip, after calling back numerous times for updates I was then told they wanted to see my last 3 payslips, then again after me chasing them up I was told they wanted my last p60.

2 days ago the valuation was carried out by e-surv, so I left it until today and again called the call centre to ask for an update on my application, the lady said she was pleased to tell me that everything was fine and I should receive the mortgage offer sometime next week.

I will keep my fingers crossed until I actually have the offer in my hands though.

In total from application to where I am now it has taken 14 days, so I suppose it hasn't taken too long but what a hassle it is always having to chase things up and speaking to the people in India who obviously know nothing apart from what is on the screen in front of them.

Apart from that yeah the woolwich are great.

hillcats

getmore4less wrote: »

What rate did you give up to go to IF.

we previously had the standard openplan offset mortgage of BofE +0.75 tracker for the life of the mortgage. So you can see why we changed to a better lifetime deal tracker.

LXGB

Barclays / Woolwich phoned me today about my complaint registered in October (see above).

Everything has now been sorted out. The rate switch was back dated to the day it should have happened and all the figures have been adjusted to what they should be.

I settled for an apology, a hamper and £20 cash. Case closed.

Happy New Year!

1mozzie

Barclays/ Woowich- DO NOT DO A MORTAGE APPLICATION WITH THEM!

They have shown complete incompetance in handling our application and zero flexibility.
I have 3 address variations to my property (legacy of past owners) and even though this is easily explained and experian have linked them all together, their underwriters have been completely useless and not understood this and so done 5 credit checks on us! (at least 2 without permission) and seriously affected our credit score. So they have not been able to see an accurate and correct credit report and rejected us.
Stay well away!!! especially if you have a glimmer of a very, very slight complication with your application it will be a lenghty and complicated nightmare!! you have been warned!!