Have I been missold a mortgage? - advice appreciated

rorschach

Hi,

Long time reader, first time poster.

Three weeks ago, my partner and I were shopping around for a mortgage. We went to a few different brokers, and were offered terms and a rate we were happy with by one of them (in this case it was a FSA registered fee charging broker, although the sums showed that things still worked out cheaper based on the rate he had found us even if we included his fee).

So we agree to what was laid out in the 'key facts' about your morgage document, the next day the bank in question took the arrangement fee, and we paid the broker.

Cut to Monday of this week, we get all the forms through from the bank for a morgage arranged at a fixed rate of 0.4% higher than we'd agreed to. At no point prior to this had we been informed of the change in rates.

The broker says the bank didn't tell him things had changed prior to putting in the application. The bank said it's the brokers fault, that they sent him details of the change in rates, and he should have known at the time of application. I'm pretty sure we're not at fault, as were never told of any change by either party.

Is this a common occurence? If we walk away completely from this deal is there any chance of getting any money back from either party? The bank's arrangement fee is non-refundable, so I guess were stuffed there, and we might have to go with what we're now being offered as we're legally obligated to purchase the property the mortgage was for, so we need a mortgage, but over the course of the fixed rate the difference between what we would have to pay now and what we thought'd we'd bought, would be about £4500.

The FSA/FSO are there I guess, but I'm not even sure who to complain to, seeing as the bank and broker are blaming each other.

All and any advice appeciated!

dunstonh

The broker is at fault for not getting the application there in time.

That said, if the deal is still the best one available at this point, then the broker is let off the hook because it may not have been possible to get the deal placed in time.

The FSA/FSO are there I guess, but I'm not even sure who to complain to

The FSA dont deal with complaints and the FOS wont deal with a complaint until you have exhausted the complaints process of the broker. Look at the key facts about our services document that the adviser issued to you at the start and you will see a complaints address and telephone number. That is where you go to.