URGENT advice needed (Santander mortgage problems)

kitty123

A family member is having ridiculous issues with a mortgage offer form Santander.

They had their offer accepted on a property over 6 weeks ago and Santander still haven't offered the mortgage. Santander lost all the initial documents and since then, have fobbed off my family with excuse after excuse. They now say it's an IT problem.

Their buyer is ready to exchange and the company who own the house my family are buying has put it back on the market as they are so fed up with waiting.

They have no issue getting a mortgage and they have done EVERYTHING they can. They are on the phone CONSTANTLY every day, badgering them and have still not even managed to get the valuation organised. They can't move mortgage companies due to the huge redemption penalty. The finanacial ombudsman takes 8 weeks todo anything and they have already put in a formal complaint to Santander. How can they be so incompetent??

Please can anyone advise? They are having a baby soon and this has caused so much stress as they are going to lose the house and their buyer. They are desperate :-(

MarkBargain

Do redemption penalties apply then if they haven't offered the mortgage? There is a forum dedicated to mortgages, so might be worth posting it there.

kitty123

This is the mortgage company who they currently have a mortgage with. They are trying to transfer it to the new property. But I will try posting this on the mortgage board.
Thanks.

Ivana_Tinkle

I don't know if this will help or make you feel worse but... We bought our place with a Santander mortgage last year and had a similar experience. Santander were just absolutely useless - losing forms; telling us they'd received forms then telling us weeks later that actually the fax was illegible, so we'd need to re-send them and go to the back of the queue again; never returning calls when they said they would and constantly fobbing us off. Their computers frequently seemed to be "down", too. We did get the morgtage offer through in the end - the same day I'd decided to give up and start again with a new lender!

Anyway, the advice we were given was to chase them constantly but actually that did no good at all and just made things much more stressful. I don't want to accuse them of deliberately lying to us on the phone, but pretty much every piece of info they ever gave us about how far along in the process we were and how much longer it was going to take was wildly wrong (we were "48 hours" from getting our decision for about six weeks, if memory serves).

I was advised at the time by one of the brokers on here to go into a branch and try to persuade the manager to take up my case for me, but in the end we got our offer through before I'd had a chance to try that. You never know, it might be worth a go.

kitty123

Thank you. It is not very reassuring to hear of others with the same experience!! But thank you for the advice. I will suggest they go into the branch - I suppose the main problem is not living near the branch adn both working full time. How long is it before a vendor will pull out bearing in mind they are trying everything to get this sorted?

Thrugelmir

kitty123 wrote: »

since then, have fobbed off my family with excuse after excuse.

The finanacial ombudsman takes 8 weeks todo anything and they have already put in a formal complaint to Santander. How can they be so incompetent??

(

Fobbed off in what way? There's no time line for obtaining a mortgage. Many lenders have a back log in having valuations performed as there's a backlog. As transactions volumes have reduced then surveyors have moved on to pastures new.

Whether they are granted a mortgage or not ultimately is a commercial decision. Not the remit of the FOS. Who won't interfere in the matter.

kitty123

Do you work for Santander??!!

I don't know anyone else who has not even had the valuation agreed 4-5 weeks after submitting their application for a mortgage. The average time scale for getting a mortgage seems to be about 2-3 weeks. They have been told every day that the person dealing with it isn't there, that someone will get back to them (and they haven't), their IT system is down.....it goes on and on. As already mentioned, their paperwork was lost and they wouldn't even admit that until pushed.I also hear of others with the same experience with Santander, so this is not just a run of the mill situation that happens to everyone.

If someone told them there was a back log of valuations then fine, but no one is telling them anything.

WellKnownSid

kitty123 wrote: »

I don't know anyone else who has not even had the valuation agreed 4-5 weeks after submitting their application for a mortgage. The average time scale for getting a mortgage seems to be about 2-3 weeks.

We're seven weeks into applying with different High Street lender and no valuation has been instructed - they keep losing paperwork, they claim to have 'left messages' on non-existent answerphones, they claim that they've sent us letters which mysteriously never arrive, all faxes sent to them automatically feed straight into an Orwellian memory hole.

Angelicdevil

kitty123 wrote: »

Thank you. It is not very reassuring to hear of others with the same experience!! But thank you for the advice. I will suggest they go into the branch - I suppose the main problem is not living near the branch adn both working full time. How long is it before a vendor will pull out bearing in mind they are trying everything to get this sorted?

Here's a good news story for you, not that it will help you.....

I got my mortgage with Santander last year, no problems at all. They sent their valuer out within 2 weeks. If it hadn't been for the people at the top of the chain fannying about we would have completed the entire process (offer to completion) in a month.

Just because people have good experience, doesn't mean they work for the company.

Keep chasing and good luck. Soon enough it will be a distant memory.

kitty123

Funny....after an email to the CEO last night and a complaint on Santander's Facebook page, they suddenly received a phone call from a manager this morning and the mortgage was approved by 1pm. It just shows what happens when you don't sit back and let them walk all over you!

They will still proceed with their complaint though, as what shocking service they received.

kitty123

I must also add that the vendor of the house (Cotswold homes) are also causing problems, by hassling my family daily and constantly threatening to pull out. This is causing unnecessary stress when completion can't happen over night. They can't go any quicker and selling it to someone else won't make it quicker. Very insensitive and not looking after their customers ( especially pregnant ones) at all.