Barclays - Sheer Incompetence

desperate_buyer

Hi all,

Let me share my experience and please tell me if this is normal because I'm genuinely at a loss for words and I cannot comprehend how an organisation that decides on mortgages can be so incompetent and disorganised.

I'm a first time buyer for a new build (28 exchange deadline) so my solicitor has been dealing with the legal work for me and the bank and she has sent a report on title to Barclays on 9th of Jan. We chased on 22nd to hear that nobody has picked up the report and they couldn't explain why. (mess up 1)

Then, after they picked up the report they found a discrepancy in the CML form so they spend 2 weeks backwards and forwards with my mortgage broker to fix this. There has been multiple backwards & forwards because one person picks up the case, says there's a problem, the next person at Barclays says oh no all is good and so on.. (mess up 2)

When we fixed that, they had to reissue the offer 2 times because they made mistakes in the spelling of the property address (mess up 3) Upon fixing the offer, the solicitor requested the offer to be faxed and they faxed it to the wrong number (mess up 4)

The bank finally responded to the solicitor's report on title however they forgot to acknowledge one point on the lease therefore the solicitor requested barclays to confirm the point again. Barclays said they need to refer to the valuer and will get back in 24 hours. After 24 hours Barclays said they sent the request to the wrong person so they had to resend (mess up 5). Today Barclays came back to say that the valuer has responded on 27th of Jan but Barclays has lost the reply and they need to look it up (mess up 6). I'm still waiting to see what will happen tomorrow.. My broker calls them literally every 2 hours..

We are almost 1 month past the exchange deadline and the developer is getting grumpy that my lender is useless. My mortgage advisor says they can't escalate the case because the escalation takes a few days and formal complaint allows Barclays for a few weeks to reply therefore if we do go the complaint route, we will be delayed even further.

So my question is - is this normal? What are my rights in this case because I honestly feel that such incompetence and lack of organisation is totally unheard of? I'm really stressed at this point because the developer has started speaking about pulling out the papers..

Many thanks for reading this long and boring post..

Dribiddi

Oh my god that sounds awful.
I’m applying with Barclays just now and I’ve not had it anywhere near as bad as you but I do get that feeling that they are cumbersome. Our application went in Sat 25th Jan and apparently it is ‘at audit’. That was as of Sat 01st Feb and there’s been nothing since.

[Deleted User]

Barclays...Sheer Incompetence?.......yeah that sounds about right. There are brokers that either flat out refuse to deal with them and will send the client direct, or will charge more for the hassle of dealing with them.
Personally I fall in the camp of trying to talk clients out of using them. If they are £200 cheaper over 2 years I would happily reduce my fee to make the next best deal more attractive to avoid using them.

All you can do is have the broker constantly escalating the case to business manager. It wont help that much as even the best business manager in the company still has to deal with their systems and staff.

This level of mess will happen on easy cases just out of nowhere with Barclays. Your broker has just got to clear his/her desk for the next few days and not leave them alone until they resolve all the delays

Whats_your_forte

Grumpy developer? Sorry but who cares! (not to sound to flippant but have very little time for developers who like to throw their weight around - though I note an incorrect CML form would have been the developer!)

Barclays are okay and well packaged cases can fly through (one offered on 4 days last week)

Yes, when some cases go wrong, they go wrong but the 28 day exchange is more a kick up the backside to make sure everybody move things forward. I missed my 28 days exchange deadline by 9 weeks due to the developer and solicitor.

When is the property due for completion??

Brock_and_Roll

As an old banker, not really surprised.....

Cutting costs to the bone + pay peanuts = high staff turnover = low competence/experience/motivation = poor service

Retired_Mortgage_Adviser

Ah Barclays. I'm sure every broker has their favourite story to tell.

Mine is that of a super straightforward case, desktop valuation done (because the neighbouring identical property had sold recently) and ready to offer within 3 days of applicaion.

But.....due to an "IT glitch" at their end, they just couldn't issue the actual offer letter and hence it took another 2-3 weeks (they were honest in saying that they had no idea when it would be fixed) to go to offer!

My client just did not believe me and never came back to me after that for her mortgage needs, can't blame her! It taught me a very valuable lesson, no matter how straightforward the case is, if you're using Barclays, set the right expectations!

So, to answer your question, mess ups like these with Barclays are not abnormal.

londonbromley

Dribiddi said:

Oh my god that sounds awful.
I’m applying with Barclays just now and I’ve not had it anywhere near as bad as you but I do get that feeling that they are cumbersome. Our application went in Sat 25th Jan and apparently it is ‘at audit’. That was as of Sat 01st Feb and there’s been nothing since.

How long was your application with the audit team? I'm on day 11 atm!

qln7676

Retired_Mortgage_Adviser said:

Ah Barclays. I'm sure every broker has their favourite story to tell.

Mine is that of a super straightforward case, desktop valuation done (because the neighbouring identical property had sold recently) and ready to offer within 3 days of applicaion.

But.....due to an "IT glitch" at their end, they just couldn't issue the actual offer letter and hence it took another 2-3 weeks (they were honest in saying that they had no idea when it would be fixed) to go to offer!

My client just did not believe me and never came back to me after that for her mortgage needs, can't blame her! It taught me a very valuable lesson, no matter how straightforward the case is, if you're using Barclays, set the right expectations!

So, to answer your question, mess ups like these with Barclays are not abnormal.

I wish I had taken a look at this thread before submitting my application to Barclays....They are indeed a real black hole! I submitted my case on 19th March and due to "internal technical issues" their system was unable to push the case into the valuation queue until end of May. When I chased my MA in Apr and May he was like " the surveyors are experiencing huge delays with the valuations, there isn't anything we can do at the moment...." But mate I was NOT even being put in the valuation queue, completely waited two months doing nothing at all! The level of customer service they are providing is absolutely shocking...you basically have to chase everyone everyday, identify problems and raise escalations yourself throughout the process. If I was a mortgage broker I would definitely charge a lot more money for having to deal with Barclays.

Their "IT glitch" continued at every stage of the mortgage process, I was told yesterday that  there had been an ongoing technical issue with the system so they may have to rekey my case which may require a further 10 working days......Great! A straight forward case now requires more than 90 days of waiting. Luckily mine is a residential converting to BTL mortgage, so if the worst happens I may just apply for CTL and pull it out from Barclays. 

csgohan4

I agree, took 6 weeks for remortgage offer sadly and asking for documents already submitted to them, but worth it at the time with the tracker before they pulled it

I've seen brokers who refuse to deal with them due to their admin nightmare

qln7676

Yup they had good rates before Covid 19... especially trackers.

I applied for a tracker with them for a residential property in Jan and their system got my interest wrong and had to pay me back 600 pounds in the end.... absolutely a joke. I should have paid attention and read it as a sign of failure and leave them at the time. My fault really....

broga020

I found their staff to be very nice indeed but they are crippled by their system and can’t really do anything to help. They have to re-enter your data a lot so I wonder if that’s how they end up with so much chaos. They do seem to have very good rates though, but I feel your pain. They were a nightmare for me also.