Fuming with countrywide mortgage adviser

Slouching_wolf

We made an offer on a house via an estate agent who told me that in order to accept our offer, we'd have to be "offer checked" by their in house mortgage adviser. I had already got 2 AIP's from two separate providers and felt confident that would be ok, but apparently not.

Anyway, the next bit is my fault as rather than see him and pay lip service, we start discussing rates & deals and he was able to put through an application via a smaller lender who don't seem to deal with customers direct. So after careful thought, we decided to go through him.

We started the mortgage application on Friday 14th August and he sent it off to their underwriters on Monday 17th August. The survey was booked and completed on Wednesday 19th August. As of today, we still don't have a decision. It's not a complex case. We are both long time permanently employed, no unsecured debts,both been with our current account and mortgage provider for 8 years. I don't understand what is taking so long, but he said himself he doesn;t understand it either and keeps chasing apparently.

Anyway, over the weekend, we have pulled out on the property we were purchasing, but we have had a new offer accepted on a different property. I phoned him today and told him this and he said that we should still wait for the final decision on our original mortgage and once agreed, we could then come in and update the property details. I said that was fine. However, as we now need to borrow slightly less, I asked him to prepare a few extra quotes for us and gave him specific requests for what we were looking for as we are toying with the idea of putting down more equity to get our LTV below 80% & I wanted to know what difference this would not only make on the rate we could get, but also how much our mortgage balance would be after 5 years (this is very important to us). He told me that after today he is going on holiday until next Tuesday, but would do as much as he could before leaving, so we can consider it all over the weekend.

We left it that he would phone me before he finished tonight with the quotes and we'd also book in another appointment for next week so we can come in and proceed. He said he should also have our final decision on our existing mortgage as well, which would be good, so at least we'd know we had been approved and could relax.

Anyway, by 7,30pm I had no call from him, so phoned and left him a voicemail, but he hasn;t come back to me (he has phoned me in the evening before), It's now 9.30pm so he obviously isn't going to call back. He is now off for a week and we are left hanging. He didn't even leave me a courtesy message saying he didnt get chance to do the new quotes etc, nor has he given us a name or number of someone else we can call in our absence.

I am seriously pee'd off with this & my cynical side is telling me we are now getting a shoddy service because we pulled out of the house that was being sold via the estate agents he is connected with. I could be wrong, of course.

However, I want our fee returned as in my opinion we have paid for a service we are not getting & I am not prepared to wait another week to get the information we should have got today. I think it's totally unacceptable to leave someone hanging for a week and failing to call back when promised earlier. I just want to walk away from countrywide mortgages and countrywide estate agents and just proceed with our AIP we had in the first place.

Thoughts? Am I within my rights to feel thoroughly !!!!ed off, or am I over reacting?

Key learn? Never go through a mortgage broker associated with an estate agents. My bad totally.

betmunch

I think you are overacting a little to be fair, currently its one late phone call.


Its not often I defend Countrywide, but on this occasion I will.


One of the few advantages of using a large brokerage like Countrywide is that they will have someone covering your brokers workload.


Give them a call tomorrow, find out who is covering the brokers files, and get them to finish the work he said he was going to do.

Slouching_wolf

Thanks for your reply. I guess I am just really frustrated with it all. I can't help but notice the coincidence between us pulling out of the property via the agents he is connected with, to suddenly not hear from him, when he has always been very good and prompt before.

I will give the estate agents a ring in the morning and see if I can get his manager's number and go from there.

betmunch

Slouching_wolf wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. I guess I am just really frustrated with it all. I can't help but notice the coincidence between us pulling out of the property via the agents he is connected with, to suddenly not hear from him, when he has always been very good and prompt before.

I will give the estate agents a ring in the morning and see if I can get his manager's number and go from there.

Knowing how they work the loss of the house they are selling will have no impact whatsoever on the mortgage advisors desire to keep you as a customer.


If you have no luck with his manager/cover then that's the time to start complaining.


Good luck

Thrugelmir

Slouching_wolf wrote: »

However, I want our fee returned as in my opinion we have paid for a service we are not getting

You rung today as you've changed your mind. That's fair enough. Calling a service shoddy because someone isn't able to turn round your request in a matter of hours is unreasonable in my personal view. Ranting away is a sure of becoming a customer that's simply not worth the bother to deal with.

Slouching_wolf

That;s a bit unfair! I do understand if he couldn't turn around my request straight away. I would have been happy with a short update call along the lines of 'I've not had chance to chase your mortgage today, nor have I got the new quotes you requested. However, you can contact my colleague X in my absence. In the meantime , lets book an appointment for next week as discussed earlier'

Therefore it's not the fact I haven't got my quotes that I'm annoyed about, it's the complete lack of contact & not being provided with another contact in his absence.

I believe you should under promise and over deliver, that way no one gets messed around. He has over promised and under delivered and now I'm feeling annoyed.

velocity_girl

Slouching_wolf wrote: »

That;s a bit unfair! I do understand if he couldn't turn around my request straight away. I would have been happy with a short update call along the lines of 'I've not had chance to chase your mortgage today, nor have I got the new quotes you requested. However, you can contact my colleague X in my absence. In the meantime , lets book an appointment for next week as discussed earlier'

Therefore it's not the fact I haven't got my quotes that I'm annoyed about, it's the complete lack of contact & not being provided with another contact in his absence.

I believe you should under promise and over deliver, that way no one gets messed around. He has over promised and under delivered and now I'm feeling annoyed.

Agree with others that you are over reacting. Not perfect he didn't contact you personally. But for all you know, he's told a colleague he couldn't get to what you requested today what with finishing up for holiday, and that colleague will be in touch with you tomorrow? If not, call his office tomorrow and ask to speak to whoever is dealing with things in his absence?