Is this legal?

debstar76

Hi there, I recently applied for a mortgage to buy a FREEHOLD property offered by Connells Estate Agents and agreed to use their in - house mortgage advisors (at a 'mandatory' fee od £499 for lifetime advice). I signed my application and instructed my solicitor. My mortgage application was approved. £1000 later (fees, surveys, searches) and 8 weeks timewise I called to see what the hold up was. I was told they were waiting for the service charge to be confirmed. I was obviously taken aback as it was FREEHOLD and my mortgage application had been made on that tenure. The mortgage advisor told me 'it's OK I called the mortgage company and changed the tenure'. Connells had also retrospectively gone into the 'sold stc' ad on rightmove and updated the tenure - but had forgotten to update the downloadable version and had expected I assume that I would not have a copy of the original particulars and tried to say it was my misunderstanding!! When I produced the original particulars and pointed out they are still downloadable as FREEHOLD and that their own mortgage advisor contacted the mortgage company to change the tenure without any communication to me at all they then backtracked saying 'in our defence the vendor is really hard to get hold of'.


I would like to know if it is legal to change the tenure of a signed mortgage application without my knowledge ?


Many Thanks
Deb

cahillg81

It is not illegal for the Advisor to make any changes post application, obviously good advice and best practice should be that they discuss with you and it would be then up to you to decide if you wanted to continue with the application. I'd suggest contacting CAB/Sols see where you stand, instinctively though this seems like a mistake made by the Estate Agent and you should be covered under the FSCS especially if you still have a copy of a the particulars showing it was a freehold property and that they had changed without communication.

kingstreet

I know of no law which prevents this.

However it would be good manners and prudent to at least inform your client that a property has a different tenure and to confirm it is acceptable to update the lender accordingly.

kingstreet

cahillg81 wrote: »

this seems like a mistake made by the Estate Agent and you should be covered under the FSCS especially if you still have a copy of a the particulars showing it was a freehold property and that they had changed without communication.

The property sale isn't covered by the FSCS. You would need the Property Ombudsman.

Financial Services is covered by the FOS too. The FSCS only gets involved if the firm in question no longer exists.

debstar76

Thanks guys - really appreciate all your responses