Halifax Stamp Duty Cashback farce

jncr

Has anyone completed on a mortgage with the Halifax's stamp duty cashback offer?

We completed on Friday; from the terms of the mortgage agreement I was strongly under the impression that the extra money would be included in the advance to our conveyancers. That hasn't happened - in fact, our conveyancers are not expecting any further money from the Halifax.

Every time I speak to the bank I get a different answer, ranging from "It was sent with the advance" to "there's a backlog; it'll be sent tomorrow" and it's driving me up the wall.

The terms in the agreement are just vague enough that I'm not even sure whether there is even cashback offered, it could feasibly be added to the loan amount - the exact wording is

"Part 2 includes a payment of 1% of the purchase price, equivalent to Stamp Duty Land Tax,
only when the purchase price is between £125,001 and £250,000. For purchases less than
£125,001 we will pay £250. Payments will be sent with the loan money to your conveyancer."

(For clarity, "Part 2" referred to is the loan amount, made up of the balance of the purchase price and £995 product fee - stamp duty is not included in it).

I am absolutely baffled, and it's getting a bit Keystone Cops now. If anyone has completed one of these mortgages and received the cashback, was it received as a separate payment, or with the advance? Was it prompt? Was it complete?

I just want to buy a bed

Dave_Ham

Should have been sent with the mortgage monies for completion.

Have you asked the broker or if direct your mortgage advisor?

kingstreet

The payment is not part of your mortgage, it is not being made part of your borrowings.

Halifax did have problems with these payments when the scheme was first launched, but the thing was supposed to have been sorted by now.

We've done a lot of these cases and if the problems had been widespread, we would have known about it.

Does the stamp duty incentive wording appear on both your KFI and your mortgage offer?

jncr

Dave_Ham wrote: »

Should have been sent with the mortgage monies for completion.

Have you asked the broker or if direct your mortgage advisor?

Thanks, that was what I thought.

It was direct; I'm waiting for a response from my advisor (out of office), but have spoken to completions & processing - Have managed to confirm from them that the amount that left their account didn't contain the stamp duty; it was the balance of the purchase and £150 cashback on a separate incentive.

Dave_Ham

Whilst it is not part of the mortgage, the ones we have completed have been sent with these funds direct to the solicitor.

I think the issues are isolated and therefore yours must be one of a few, although surprised no-one is picking this up on your behalf and you are doing all of the chasing.

Good luck

jncr

kingstreet wrote: »

The payment is not part of your mortgage, it is not being made part of your borrowings.

Halifax did have problems with these payments when the scheme was first launched, but the thing was supposed to have been sorted by now.

We've done a lot of these cases and if the problems had been widespread, we would have known about it.

Does the stamp duty incentive wording appear on both your KFI and your mortgage offer?

It does indeed appear on both (had to check the KFI), and the wording is identical.

Dave_Ham

kingstreet wrote: »

Does the stamp duty incentive wording appear on both your KFI and your mortgage offer?

Good question, in case the product was changed in error.

kingstreet

I worded that badly, I was trying to explain to jncr that it isn't being added to the loan as he suggested in his OP. I understand it's supposed to be TTed to the solicitor with the mortgage money as cashbacks have going back to the days of Abbey where we used to use the cashback for the deposit!

There must still be cases where the cashback hasn't been issued and they are doing them manually. I'd be on the phone to our BDM, I don't know what a borrower would do. Talk to your usual contact, I guess.

jncr

Dave_Ham wrote: »

Whilst it is not part of the mortgage, the ones we have completed have been sent with these funds direct to the solicitor.

I think the issues are isolated and therefore yours must be one of a few, although surprised no-one is picking this up on your behalf and you are doing all of the chasing.

Good luck

Thanks Dave. Matters have been complicated somewhat because our solicitor isn't on the Halifax panel, so the financial work has been outsourced to someone else, and the relationship with our solicitor is pretty strained after a long and painful transaction, which has left me doing most of the grunt work for the final stretch - she clocked out of the purchase a month ago.

Thanks guys, I guess I'll have to keep chasing.

Dave_Ham

kingstreet wrote: »

The payment is not part of your mortgage, it is not being made part of your borrowings.

Halifax did have problems with these payments when the scheme was first launched, but the thing was supposed to have been sorted by now.

We've done a lot of these cases and if the problems had been widespread, we would have known about it.

Does the stamp duty incentive wording appear on both your KFI and your mortgage offer?

Indeed complicated, I have always struggled to understand why anyone would go for this above just 1 Solicitor but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I would suspect this could be at the route of the problem though, as I too have not heard of any issues since the initial tranche completed.

Sensible money suggests the Solicitor has and should find out the answers here as fancy Halifax would have sent

charzy11

Did you get your money?. Im having similar issues on a property completed 24th july. My solicitor didn't even spot the section on the cashback offer and invoiced me for the stamp duty . I was therefore expecting it direct from Halifax untill i asked my broker how long it would take. I couldn't even get through to Halifax and the solicitor claims that they have tried and failed to get through a number of times regarding the issue. Fortunately my broker did and we were informed of the 2 day backlog. ( what if I was relying on the funds to complete?) . After this past, with no money I still couldnt get through. Fortunately my broker had a contact who managed to escalate the case with completions. They reported that the money had been sent. Forwarded to solicitor who were adamant the money wasn't received and reasonably asked exactly when it was sent. Now Halifax are claiming it is going to take 10 working days to trace it. Whaaaaaa!! How can it take this long to find a bacs transfer?