Abbey National rant and help needed please!

possom46

We have always had our mortgage with the Abbey National, 15 years to run and we owe £22800. Decided that we would like to borrow £10,000 to get the house done up (driveway, bathroom, hall knocked through etc. etc.). Applied at the end of May with Abbey.

Did their phone interview, all fine. Waited for 2 weeks for forms to arrive, nothing, rang them up, oh sorry the woman doing the interview forgot to add that you had a 2nd charge on the property. This is a secured loan we took out 8 years ago when we got married and has 2 years left to run. I'm annoyed but go along with it. 2 weeks later I ring again, oh yes, we're on to it, tell you what, i'll fast-track the application, the money will be in your account in 8 working days. We go on holiday 2 days later presuming all will be well when we return. Get home, no money, ring Abbey. No we can't fast-track applications with a 2nd charge. Ok, i've been lied to again but go along with it, can you fax it I ask them, no can't fax a deed of postponement. Ring the 2nd charge company a week later, have you got the papers from Abbey? No, ring them and see if they've sent them to this address (which I had previously given them). Ring Abbey, can't talk to you, you'll have to ring Glasgow, here's the number. Ring Glasgow, sorry but you'll have to ring Glasgow, isn't this Glasgow the guy on the phone told me this was the number for Glasgow, no sorry , eventually find out, no they've sent it to the wrong address. I ask again, can you fax them because you've messed up. Yes, of course we can fax them (?!!!). Ring 2nd charge company 2 days later, yes we've received the deed of postponement, now all we need is, £125, a surveyor's valuation, 3 months payslips, signed confirmation from yourselves that we can carry out a credit check and a detailed account of the whole lot from Abbey!!! Abbey told me that there would be no problem, they deal with this all the time and it's just a signature that would be needed. I am now waiting for Abbey to ring me (because only 1 person out of the whole company can deal with my application apparently) to discuss borrowing another £3000 to pay off the 2nd charge which I know makes financial sense really but didn't think of doing it to start with.

Is this really how bad Abbey National has become? The amount of lies I have had to deal with in the last 2 months is unbelievable. I'm not sure what to do now, carry on with Abbey or apply for a mortgage and extra borrowing with a completely different lender - either way I can see this dragging weeks ahead and i'm running out of patience and very stressed!!!

boyse7en

Can only sympathise,

We used Abbey 5 years ago for a mortgage, and they managed to c**k it all up so badly we nearly lost the house. Only the good will of the seller who allowed us to move in before he had the money kept us there.

It was a similar list of not doing what they said they were doing, contradicting there own letters, forgetting to post documents, not faxing documents to the right people or not at all...

Gets me annoyed just remembering it all

sammyjammy

Sounds similar to my request for a secured loan on top of my mortgage with them, absolutely disgraceful customer service and the one person actually dealing with my account was the rudest person ever, really really poor service these days and have you ever tried queuing up in the bank to get served - what a joke!

MarkyMarkD

Possom

They are called "Abbey" now, not Abbey National.

I am not sure who was at fault here.

Presuming that you told the original staff member that you had a second charge loan, then they should have recorded that on your application. And indeed, they should have suggested consolidating it with your new Abbey loan - particularly if the rate on it is higher than Abbey will charge you.

So, either the original staff member was useless or you didn't properly explaining having a second charge on the property - in which case, you can't expect them to be psychic.

Anyway, once the processing unit identified that you had a second charge loan, they had to get the other lender to postpone their security. That's because Abbey aren't happy to be a third charge on the property as well as a first charge. The reason they can't fast track it is that they are entirely in the hands of the second charge holder - who has no interest in co-operating!

Abbey don't know whether your particular second charge lender will demand a charge for postponement (although most would) or whether they'll take ages (see above).

I think that this whole situation boils down to a lack of clarity at the original interview. And that may have been Abbey's fault or may have been yours IMHO.

stevetherev

Any Lender worth using would have a record of any second charges held that appeared as soon as the account records are accessed. It sounds like an Abbey !!!! up to me (it wasn't for nothing that other lenders once called them the shabby abbey) and you should ask them to extract the digit on the processing and compensate you.

Another question: whatever happened to letters of postponement for second charges? They are just as legal, easy to deal with and take up no time at all. In any event since Abbey is a bank and your debt is small against the value why bother postponing anyway? There's enough equity surely even if the further loan is the third charge ... unbelieveable service!

Madjock

If a 2nd charge is for 10k or less the main mortgage lender does not have to be informed.
The 2nd charge will always have to agree to a deed of postponement for a remortgage to proceed, and they always charge for it as they have to take legal advice too (probably not £125's worth, but that's not the issue).
If the 2nd charge wasn't mentioned by the OP when he first spoke to Abbey, they would have found it when they did their credit search. Someone at Abbey did give duff advice when they said they could fasttrack the app.
I would think it would be more prudent at this stage to pay the £125 and keep the 2nd charge, I would check carefully to see if there is any financial gain in paying it off.

possom46

Thanks for all the advice.

The thing is, I did mention the 2nd charge at the first interview, I explained everything, I gave them the correct address as well. We are now going to apply for a little more to pay off the 2nd charge. Spoke to them Monday as in my original post, was told the person dealing with it would ring back in 24 hours, rang back yesterday (Wednesday), was told that the person has to ring back in 48 hours, it's now Thursday and still no phone call!!! :mad:

MarkyMarkD

Thanks for the further info. The person who did the mortgage interview must have been a numpty who didn't understand what you meant by a second charge loan - d'oh!

possom46

UPDATE:-

Finally spoke to someone, we then decided it would be best to borrow additional money to pay off the 2nd charge. Was taken through the process again from the beginning. Received the redemption figure from the 2nd charge company and was told by Abbey to fax it to them along with our signed acceptance of the loan terms which I did last Friday. Spoke to them on the phone and they said it would be actioned on the Monday. Rang them on the Tuesday, was told that because it was faxed along with the 2nd charge form it had gone onto a different pile (!!) and it would be dealt with soon. Rang Wednesday, was told that it was just waiting for the manager to sign the cheques off and I should receive a cheque this week. Rang today (Saturday) and was told that they received the extra information they had been waiting for yesterday (what's this? no-one told me this!) and that it would actioned next Tuesday and we should receive a cheque by next weekend!!!! I explained to the woman on the phone that I was fed up with being lied to and could she guarantee that I would be getting the cheque by then. Of course she couldn't and wasn't happy that I had said "lied" until I explained to her what had happened, and also asked her if she could see how many phonecalls I had made over the last 2 months to try and get this sorted out. I have now got the number for the complaints department. Also, because we are now paying off the 2nd charge I have been ringing and leaving messages for the past 2 weeks asking for my £50 charge back that i'm entitled to and of course no phone call back and no refund, as yet :mad: :mad: :mad:

This is all from an initial application that we put in at the end of May!!!!

possom46

OK, another update:-

Got back from a few days away tonight (Tuesday) and there's another letter from Abbey asking us to sign acceptance forms (for the 3rd time) and a fees form and send them back!!! So when I spoke to them Saturday and was told that they had everything they needed and the cheques would be dealt with today it was another lie, in fact they sent these further letters out yesterday which I presume must be filled in, sent back and then they might, just might be able to deal with it and I might receive a cheque (3 months after my application). I am partly typing this out here so that when I begin my complaints letter (tomorrow), I have certain things clear in my head as it's been a long ride :mad: :mad: :mad:

MarkyMarkD

I don't seem to read anything other than threads here (and letters in the paper) slagging off Abbey's administration. Things certainly don't seem to have got better since the Santander takeover.