Have I been defrauded by Aldermore bank?

fridaypassion

So I have a bit of an odd situation here we applied for a small commercial mortgage from Aldermore (less than 100k) They have been a nightmare to deal with dragging the process on for some 5 months. Each time we get close to completion they come up with another traunch of stuff they want to support the application. Now despite chasing us to complete last month ( I guess their year end) they have on Friday pulled our mortgage offer and are currently refusing to give any explanation as to why.

Now I feel a bit silly here because after the fact I have looked at some reviews on trustpilot and pretty much everywhere else and I am finding that there are lots of people in the same situation which would lead me to believe that this is systemic.

I wondered if anyone on here had been in a similar situation? With the various fees etc we are about £4000 of which I think around £1500 would have been markup to Aldermore so my suspicion is that they run more applications than they have funding for and bin off the overspill keeping the inflated fees for valuations and the like. They also operate a system of using a 3rd set of solicitors to act for them who are looking for £1600 in addition to what I have already paid. I just have that awful feeling that the whole thing has been a scam. The mortgage is small and represents less than 1 x annual earnings so affordability and credit worthiness cant be an issue. We were putting 30% in as a deposit too so we are just dumbfounded at the moment but that turned to anger when I saw so many other of their customers had the same thing happen.

I guess it is possible that they are just incompetent but a very quick scan of rust pilot reveals many more people in my situation. Luckily I still have 3 months of a tenancy left for my business but had timescales been tighter if could have actually been devastating for us.

It's my understanding that under FCA rules they have to at least tell us why they have rescinded the offer but I'm also now worried it will affect us doing things like re mortgaging in the future.

[Deleted User]

No, you haven't been defrauded by a bank.

There's also not been a scam.

davidmcn

Can't help you with Aldermore in particular, but:

fridaypassion wrote: »

They also operate a system of using a 3rd set of solicitors to act for them who are looking for £1600 in addition to what I have already paid.

is hardly peculiar to Aldermore - it's the norm for commercial lenders to want separate representation rather than to trust your solicitors. And, yes, they'll want paid no matter whose "fault" it is that their work has been pointless.

fridaypassion

Deleted_User wrote: »

No, you haven't been defrauded by a bank.

There's also not been a scam.

I never suspected this until a pattern was established. If it was a one off with my case then yes I have heard of even things like bank's own mistakes resulting in offers being pulled by automated systems but if you look at their reviews this is something they are doing a lot. The question is why?

davidmcn

Online reviews by their nature will be biased towards those with complaints. If the bank don't have an objective reason for withdrawing an offer then why would they? They'd make far more money out of you by advancing the loan.

fridaypassion

Well that would be logical but so would sorting out a simple application that could be done in a day before 5 months have elapsed.

None of it makes sense at all. The losses I have incurred plus lost rent that the vendor of the building has taken you are into it costing £10,000. It's not fair my am here is to find out if there is a darker reason as to why they seem to be systematically doing this. Maybe they just run out of money to lend in a certain period or something like that who knows.

Thrugelmir

When you say a third set of solicitors. Did you appoint your own? The lender will only use a solicitor on their approved list. Too many cases of colluded fraud in the past to rely on those choosen by mortgage applicants.

Commercial mortgages are unregulated. There's no fixed criteria. As all down to the lenders judgement when underwriting the application. They'll have incurred considerable time and cost as very much a manually driven process.

Have you received a formal mortgage offer? Completion comes after exchange. Yet sounds as if your application is still being processed.

fridaypassion

No we had a formal mortgage offer some weeks ago. It looks like they spelt my name wrong on the offer so had actually sent out a revised offer. We were just about to complete (Exchange on same day) and the call I got expecting it to be the call the get the keys was to tell me they had pulled the offer.

I called them yesterday and actually got to speak to the mortgage processing team but they are refusing to tell me what the reason was.

We have resolved to get a bit more deposit together so we can go with our regular bank I think. We only ended up with Aldermore as they advertised 25% deposits (this was goalpost shifted to 30% after about a month of the too and fro game)

It's still my firm belief that it is on some level a con. We have 30% down and a mortgage that is not even 1 x annal earnings. Looks like an easy transaction to me. No credit issues of any kind. My guess is they have some kind of limited budget and having chased us to complete last month (end of March) which we ironically couldn't do due to yet another round of information and pointless surveys they asked for we have now been dropped.

I'm surprised to see commercial lending is unregulated. A bit like lettings then as we have been burned on that side as well previously.

Truly awful situation. Looking to rent the unit now for a short time to build up a bigger deposit and just use our own bank (Handels) to do the mortgage.