ERC forced move of lender

Sparklestar1127

Hi 👋🏼 
This is a bit of a long one so apologies in advance. In April this year we set the wheels in motion for a remortgage to Nationwide as our FR was coming to an end on July 1st. Due to the pandemic I thought it was wise to get in early and secure a 5 year fixed portable mortgage. All went great, mortgage now with Nationwide. 

We put our house up for sale at the beginning of July and sold it within days, we also found another property within days too. We have never bought and sold before so it’s new to us. 

Nationwide, after a few phone calls and wrong information couldn’t give us a DIP let alone let us apply until our first payment has gone out of our account (which is August 1st) and they’ve said not to try until 5th August because the payment date falls on a Saturday. I tried to make an early payment and they said that would be classed as an overpayment and still would not trigger the system. Their system does not recognise us at all until then. So there’s nothing they can do. So we get a DIP from Platform. Everything seemed to be moving very quickly and so we decided to be able to fill the stuff out and pay the search fees we would apply to platform. Obviously we are going to incur a 5.8k ERC if we leave Nationwide. My preference has and always was to stay with them but it’s so difficult. We are now holding things up as we wait for Platform to make their decision which is back logged. Nationwide (from 5th) are going to take a further 18 working days from application to offer and by then it will have been a whole 8/9 weeks from when we sold our house.

Also in the mix here is the factor of multiple credit checks if I apply to NW next week, they could decline and then Platform could pull the offer based on that extra credit search. I just feel like it’s so unreasonable and we know the people who’s house we are trying to buy so I feel embarrassed to be holding things up. 

I don’t know what to do so any suggestions are welcome. I’m considering at this stage following through with Platform and complaining on the basis of unfairness to NW. 

Thanks for any replies 🙏 😊 

[Deleted User]

Does it matter if it takes 8 weeks to get a mortgage offer when it takes on average 12 weeks to get the legal stuff done? 

Get the platform one approved and offered and then deal with NW whenever you can.  If you get to the point of people demanding an exchange of contracts then you have a decision to make on if you pay the erc or buy some more time. 

An extra credit check is going to be of no consequence to Platform if you have a decent credit rating already.   It wont flag anything unless the data is different across the applications. 

For what it matters, I am planning to do this for a lot of my home movers at the moment.   We have a mortgage thats the best available but if their existing lender comes back then i will process a new application in the hope i can get a new offer before exchange is requested.  Its not unusual. 

haras_n0sirrah

Have you done any of this via a broker? If so and you told them you were planning on moving it was terrible advice and complaint worthy. Porting is never guaranteed so I am not sure you can complain to nationwide as they have offered you money against your current house not a new one. The error here is tying yourself into a house you are planning on selling.

ACG

Your complaining to Nationwide because their process which was in place before you tied into a deal with them is unfair? 
If this was important to you, you should have checked upfront. 

What I would have done would be to explain to the vendors what was happening and the problems with nationwide but to get the legal work in motion and then apply for the mortgage on the 5th August. It is a bit back to front to do it that way but should not take any longer than starting the legal work once the mortgage offer was issued. 

Sounds like you made the biggest mistake of tying into a new deal when looking to move so soon but then also maybe your broker is a little light on experience? But to be honest, if I was working for Nationwide I would reject your complaint because they are following their process, they have not done anything wrong, it is just that their process does not work as you would like.

Sparklestar1127

Thanks everyone, we didn’t know back in April we’d be thinking of moving this soon so no, totally not our brokers fault. 

We did check upfront that the mortgage was portable as we knew a move would be on the cards sometime within the next 5 years.