Countrywide Mortgage Services Dispute

actionjackson

Good evening.

I'm not sure is this is the right place to put this post so moderators feel free to move it if required.

Detail is king I know, but right now I will summarize and if there is millage in my dispute, I will elaborate.

Background:

Last month me and my partner moved into our new home. Our joint mortgage was arranged with Countrywide Mortgage Services and we chose Santander. The property we moved out of is in my name only and has been kept on and is being rented out - the lender has been notified and its now on a buy - let. To raise the deposit for our new, joint property we needed to re-mortgage another property (in my partners name) and pull out around 25K equity.

We had been searching for our home for over 1 year and my first visit to Countrywide was around May last year for a consultation on my own. Subsequently we had a home visit which included my partner and we went through the applications in greater detail. At this stage we was still hadn't found the right property but was keen to know exactly what we could borrow. My partner did express concern over re-mortgaging her studio flat as we had experienced issues finding a new lender in the past due to the square footage of the floor area. Anyway, the consultant didn't seem concerned and said they had a full panel of specialist lenders to use and was confident of finding a lender. We received agreements in principal for the new purchase (Santander) and the re-mortgage (The Mortgage Works).

Fast forward January 2015 and we found our home and had an offer accepted. Offer accepted on the basis of a fast sale as we was not in a chain and nor was the seller. We contact Countrywide and the consultant visited our home again to update the applications. We then meet at the Countrywide office a couple of days later in the evening to review the mortgage offers available to us which turned out to be with the same lenders. All we had to do was make a commitment on length of term & fixed period and the formal application was going to be made the following day, which was a Saturday. My partner is a nervous person and I vividly remember her asking about the size of her flat and if this was a concern and again we was told it will be ok.

Early that next week we received the good news that the Santander mortgage was approved and The Mortgage Works needed to book a visit/valuation to my partners flat. Timing was bad for me as i was in Paris for business and we had to work this visit around the tenant in the flat. The valuation took place on Thursday that week and i returned back home on Friday. I contacted the consultant several times on Friday because we had our first meeting with the solicitor in the afternoon and i needed some information. I was told he hadn't heard back regarding the valuation, it would take around 5 days for the report to come through.

The next Monday I contacted the Countrywide consultant for an update but he was off sick and I was told he is expected to be in tomorrow by the Abbotts person, as this is where he was based. I called on Tuesday and again the consultant was off sick so i asked the person in Abbotts who I could speak to about our case. This is when i discovered Countrywide have no procedures in place for Consultants to hand over ongoing mortgage applications to other consultants which is effectively what I was told when i called their head office. The head office said they would get the regional manager to call me that day who was based out of another branch, which he didn't, so I decided to contact the mortgage works myself for an update. Not thinking at the time, the application was solely in my partners name so she had to make the call. Anyway, she was informed very quickly that the report was emailed to the countrywide consultant during the afternoon of the day the valuation was carried out, and as me and my partner feared they was unable to lend because of the size of the property. At this stage i was livid with Countrywide and called their head office to find out why I hadn't been contacted by the regional manager and demanded their contact details. I was told this is not allowed but i managed to find out which branch he was based in. I finally got hold of the regional manager and explained everything, including that i spoke to his consultant the day after the valuation and was told their would not be a response from the mortgage works until the following week, now knowing the report was in his email inbox. The regional manager said he couldn't speculate to why I wasn't informed of the decision not to lend on the Friday we spoke, but possibly it was because he wanted to deliver bad then good news once he had found a new lender! In my view you just have to put your cards down on the table and be honest with your clients!

So, the consultant was off sick all week and the regional manager asked another consultant to find a new lender but to no avail after 3 days of searching, so it left us 25K short and our solicitor was pushing for the money to be transferred. We had no choice but to sell the flat but this was going to take to long and we exhausted every possible right way to raise the cash, friends, family even my employer which was an unpleasant experience but no one could help. In the end I took the decision to borrow unsecured from my bank and not disclose this to anyone. I no this is not right but it was this way or lose our home we had spent over a year searching for and all the fees paid for searches, solicitors etc.

The consultant was back at work a week later and contacted me to try and explain and asked how we wanted to proceed. I said we have been forced to take a "gift" from a family member and he reminded me that if we had borrowed the money he would be forced to tell the lender. Nice, but i guess these are the rules.

Fortunately we moved into our new home and we have accepted an offer on the flat so hope to get the transaction done soon. In the meantime i have already paid 1 x £500 loan payment and expect to pay another before we get the cash from the flat sale and pay off the loan. This whole situation could easily have been avoided if the Countrywide consultant had investigated our concerns and remember he had 1 year to do so!

A formal complaint went into Countrywide Mortgage Services and they have replied with an offer to reimburse the mortgage arrangement fee on the flat, the valuation fee and £100 for the inconvenience. Surely by default these costs should be refunded. Our dispute stated we wanted a refund on all costs for both mortgages because of the knock on effect of their mistake, but was told in the letter that they can only consider this if their was a financial loss (I couldn't really tell them I got a new loan) and as we have moved into the property without any significant delay they see no grounds for compensation.

We have both felt sick throughout this situation and turned a typically stressful experience into a nightmare. As a minimum it will cost us £1,000 (2 x loan payments) but we have an unplanned and un-budgeted house sale happening now which has given us more to stress about.

Can anyone give me guidance on the best route forward and is £100 compensation fair for everything we have gone through?

betmunch

If you are unhappy about the outcome you should refer it to the ombudsman, and I would encourage you to do this.

Its easy to check that the size of a studio is acceptable or not, I've just checked TMW on my phone in seconds!

You will need to show your financial loss and suggest a level of compensation is fair and how you got to that figure

Disgraceful service.

Dave_Ham

Poor show from them, although I am not surprised as your hear these stories constantly.

I don't think you are likely to achieve much more in compensation, but should still pursue as unacceptable from them.

As Betmunch confirmed, I would have known this off the top of my head and if unsure takes under a minute to check.

You even gave them the heads up that this has been an issue in the past..

actionjackson

Thanks for the advice. My concern with notifying the ombudsmen is the fact I took out the unsecured loan and didn't tell Countrywide. Will this land me in trouble and could countrywide tell Santander?

Dave_Ham

I personally think that part of the experience is best not sharing.

Rightly or wrongly you took a chance and did what you had to. You are not going to get these payment reimbursed so cannot see any merit in bringing up.

Leon_W

As soon as you get to the line with "studio flat" written in it you know what the issue is going to be !


It's a very obvious red flag to practically any broker and simple enough to check with TMW, from their website.......


Purpose Built flats and studio flats

The internal floor area must be no less than 30 square metres. Studio Flats must contain a separate bathroom and separate kitchen.


Seems simple enough criteria, you either meet it or you don't, and it's not something I would go out on a limb for hoping to negotiate later.


As for compensation I think you've been offered all that could reasonably be expected. I think adding the two loan payments in is a bit rich as you would have had to make mortgage payments anyway.

TrickyDicky101

Since CW have already agreed to refund the fees in relation to this mortgage I don't think you are going to get anything more out of the FOS. You may, however, be able to use the threat of the FOS to extract an additional payment from CW (as it costs them to be referred to FOS).

haras_nosirrah

removed due to edit

Leon_W

Makes you kind of feel sorry for the broker if that's the case.


It doesn't seem right that CountryWide should effectively be making extra money for a failing by THEIR broker. It rewards Countrywide for training the brokers badly.

haras_nosirrah

removed due to edit

Leon_W

That's awful haras.


I'd tell em where to stuff their job to be honest. We all go out of our way to avoid any complaints but it is a fact of life that there are always going to be issues at some point. You seem to have been very unfairly penalised for something that was totally not your fault but very much in Countrywides interest to make a great deal of fuss over.