Bank sent mortgage offer to the wrong solicitors. (Pursue further compensation?)

analog

Hello,

Basically Santander sent my mortgage offer to the completely wrong solicitors and has put my mortgage back by a month at least.

I'm currently renting the property so that means another month of rent to pay plus the seller requires a the mortgage to go through asap so she can purchase another property.

I reached out on Twitter and mentioned that it's a big mistake and a GDPR issue as well. They have offered me compensation of £120.

More than I expected but they also stated I could complain to the financial ombudsman as well.

My question is, is this worth pursuing for further compensation or not? With all the excessive fees with buying my first property, every little helps and it was a massive !!!!-up!

Thanks for any advice. :beer:

AdrianC

What's your actual loss here?

A month's rent - but you aren't paying interest on borrowed money for that month.
A delay in the chain - but zero cost associated with that. Not sure why it would set back for "a month at least" - surely the wrong solicitor called them immediately, so maybe a few days of post delay?

So a bit of inconvenience. Will £120 make you feel happier about that?

Yes, they dropped a hairy one. Was the solicitor totally random, or was it somebody else involved in the transaction at some stage?

davidmcn

Not sure why it would delay things by a month - surely it should only take a few days to figure out that the offer has gone to the wrong firm, and get a replacement out? Especially if everything else was done and this was the last piece of the jigsaw? (if it wasn't, there are 101 other things which could delay the transaction...)

And the wrong solicitors aren't going to be interested in your mortgage offer (and have to treat it as confidential anyway) so while technically a GDPR breach it's hardly one which could cause you any loss.

I would just take the £120 and run.

analog

Hello,

It was a completely random solicitors, due to a 'technical error'.

Put back by a month as the wrong solicitors did not contact the bank and the mortgage offer was finally delivered to the correct solicitors just under a month later.

It was only 2 days before the papers were delivered to the correct people that my mortgage broker called to apologise on the bank's behalf. So yes it has put thing back by a month easily.

AdrianC

analog wrote: »

Put back by a month as the wrong solicitors did not contact the bank...

So a short delay was the lender's fault, but the bulk of it was outside their control.

It was only 2 days before the papers were delivered to the correct people that my mortgage broker called to apologise on the bank's behalf.

Why didn't the broker pick up on it?

davidmcn

analog wrote: »

Put back by a month as the wrong solicitors did not contact the bank

So why didn't you, or the correct solicitors, or your broker, contact the bank when you realised that the offer hadn't turned up? I've encountered these things simply going astray in the post, it doesn't take a month to sort out.

analog

AdrianC wrote: »

So a short delay was the lender's fault, but the bulk of it was outside their control.


Why didn't the broker pick up on it?

How should I know? :wall:

davidmcn wrote: »

So why didn't you, or the correct solicitors, or your broker, contact the bank when you realised that the offer hadn't turned up? I've encountered these things simply going astray in the post, it doesn't take a month to sort out.

Well the mortgage offer I received in the post makes no mention of any solicitors by name or address. Again, how should I know why the broker, bank or solicitors took a month to figure the mistake out. :wall:

AdrianC

I think you're missing the point here.

"It went wrong" isn't always the same thing as "It's their fault".

Yes, the lender made an error (sending to the wrong solicitor), which caused the problem.
Various others also made errors following on from that, and they massively compounded that original error.
The original error was the cause of the problem, but not the cause of the delay - those subsequent errors were the cause of the delay, the errors made by the random solicitor (failure to notify the lender) and by the broker (failure to chase up). If the lender had been the only one to make an error, the delay would have been a couple of days.

davidmcn

analog wrote: »

Well the mortgage offer I received in the post makes no mention of any solicitors by name or address. Again, how should I know why the broker, bank or solicitors took a month to figure the mistake out.

Given you're buying a property, I'd expect you to be in reasonably frequent contact with your solicitor, and the fact the mortgage offer was still outstanding ought to have come up. Especially if that was the last thing everybody was waiting for - and if it wasn't, you haven't really lost a month as there was other stuff to be getting on with anyway.

[Deleted User]

I find it hard to believe the lender made an error. Brokers key the solicitors on the application. Are you sure the broker didn't select the wrong address. It comes up as a bunch of radio buttons when you search for solicitors.
Mistakes happen, this one isn't massive.

If it took nearly a month to discover the correct solicitors didn't have the offer then that's on the broker.
I call every solicitor 5 days after offer to make sure they have the documents, and then chase for reissue if they haven't been received.

£120 seems very generous

Tiglet2

There are many components of conveyancing, one of which is having a valid mortgage offer, but providing the mortgage offer is in place before exchange, then there is no delay. There are other processes (searches, enquiries, ID requirements etc) needed to reach exchange and run alongside the buyer's obligations, i.e. obtaining a mortgage and a survey. Don't forget searches and enquiries can take weeks and weeks, so the "delay" in the solicitor receiving the mortgage offer just means that the "order" in which paperwork is received and added to the file may be slightly skewed, but will not make any difference as to how long the whole process takes.

I would accept the offer.