Remortgage why so hard!

Jimm918

So my wife and I bought our first house 3 years ago and got a good deal with natwest. Now that term has come to an end we have looked around for better deals as we are now earning more and no longer young first timers and our LTV is now under 85%.

We found a good deal with nationwide and signed up for it paying our £90 fees straight away and getting all the forms back within a week of getting them and disclosing all the info about our place. This is the problem. We live in a converted Victorian house which is now two flats, we own the freehold to the building and have the downstairs, garden and garage while someone else owns the lease to the upstairs flat (which only has 65 years left but that's a different post!)

Nationwide/solicitors have said these facts weren't disclosed and they didnt know we were the freeholder and they thought we had a lease even though we have told them time and time again on forms and over the phone.

The mortgage seems to be going through but seeing as we have now paid £100 per month over what we wanted to be for 5 months now and the fact they have "lost" paper work im wanting to tell them where to go.

Here the the problem, can i get my £90 back. Normally i know you cant but seeing as they are fairly incompetent and this has gone on so long do i have a case?

Nationwides customer care last comment to us when we tried to complain was
"well what do you want me to do about it" when we tried to complain.
excellent company

somethingcorporate

No, I don't think you're entitled to your money back.

I think if you're firm and persistent and make a strong written complaint you may get lucky.

kingstreet

Unless you purchased a freehold flat, you have a lease for your flat and that is what you are remortgaging.

When you purchase the freehold for the building later, you effectively become two people.

You are the leaseholder of Flat 1 and you are the freeholder of 2 Any Street.

You do not suddenly have a freehold flat. Nor would you want one, unless you bought the property on that basis.

When you apply for a mortgage, you apply as the leaseholder of Flat 1 and the residual lease term is going to have an impact on the mortgage/lender.

What did you put on the application?

Jimm918

kingstreet wrote: »

Unless you purchased a freehold flat, you have a lease for your flat and that is what you are remortgaging.

When you purchase the freehold for the building later, you effectively become two people.

You are the leaseholder of Flat 1 and you are the freeholder of 2 Any Street.

You do not suddenly have a freehold flat. Nor would you want one, unless you bought the property on that basis.

When you apply for a mortgage, you apply as the leaseholder of Flat 1 and the residual lease term is going to have an impact on the mortgage/lender.

What did you put on the application?

Thanks i think. However your assumption although insightful is wrong on this occasion.
I purchased the flat as the freeholder, this freehold also covers the flat above me who is currently sitting on a 65 year lease, this is why i wanted the freehold, so yes i would want one. As the freeholder i have no lease and as such on the paperwork i put freeholder.
I have previously worked in property and know this isn't the norm which is why it must have caused the confusion with nationwide as it has you and indeed the valuer that came round and was outright rude when i tried to explain it to him.
Thanks for your thoughts though.

i think regardless of my £90 i'm going to pull the plug as nationwide have been a nightmare from loosing paperwork to just being rude. although natwest have had their moments we originally got our mortgage on this place in 5 weeks as first time buyers. this time around it seems like hard work.

Thrugelmir

Seems as if everybody has been rude in your view. Is it possibly more a case that you haven't like what they've been saying.

Jimm918

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Seems as if everybody has been rude in your view. Is it possibly more a case that you haven't like what they've been saying.

A customer service rep for the bank that said "what do you want me to do about it" when we asked to make a complaint

A surveyor who told me i was wrong about my lease/freehold who then told me how many years he had worked in the industry, when i showed him the freehold document he said my legal document must be wrong! Ok this could be arrogance rather than rudeness but still. i didnt like what he was saying as in this instance he was wrong but couldn't accept it. I had two solicitors check the freehold/lease out before buying as it an investment as much as a place to live.
either way its off topic and isn't what i was asking.

but thanks for your input

kingstreet

Ok. You owned a freehold flat from the outset. As this is unusual, my assumption was a punt where I'd usually be right...

If you declared on the application you owned a freehold flat and Nationwide proceeded with the application when it would later be unable to lend on that basis, you would have grounds for complaint.

You would then make a formal complaint and if unhappy with the final outcome, escalate to FOS.

However, Nationwide's £99 booking fee is a fee to reserve the product. If you actually got that product, there would not seem to be a problem with that.

If your complaint concerns the processing of the case and the duration, you may find an ex-gratia payment of upto £250 is the best you are offered for the inconvenience as there is no set timescale in which a lender has to process a mortgage application.

I suggest you write, setting out your concerns logically and in chronological order, finishing with what you want them to do to put it right.

ethank

If you check the Council of Mortgage Lenders Handbook, you will find that most lenders do not lend on freehold flats. Check out 'Question 5.7.1 - Do you lend on freehold flats?'

For this reason it is common as Kingstreet suggested for the lease of the flat to be seperate to the freehold of the property, even though the freeholder and the leaseholder can be the same person. As you can see from the list, if things were not separated, it could make your freehold flat virtually unmortgageable.

I would also query the solicitor from the purchase to ascertain how this was treated.

Also check the Land Registry website to see if there is a separate lease and freehold for your property.
Perhaps your circumstance is confusing the hell out of Nationwide, hence the length of time.

getmore4less

Did NatWest not have a suitable product for a simple quick change.

Dave_Ham

Few considerations to add, at bank customer service school; first lesson is to ask the customer what they want to make the situation right. Perhaps the skill is in the delivery of this (or not in your case)

When you purchased the property, I am surprised neither solicitor sent you a letter with great big letters confirming it would be nearly impossible to achieve any sort of future finance on this property, given the situation. I would be asking them a few questions also.

Write to Nationwide as sounds like they have been poor, although I would be taking some legal advice as there should be a solution to move this forward to everyone's satisfaction.

Good luck

egoode

As you are the freeholder could you not just create a leasehold on your flat so you can mortgage the property and also means if you want to sell the flat later you could still retain the freehold of the property. It may cost you a bit in legal fees but at least it would make getting a mortgage easier.