SAR report

KFReid

Dear Martin
Could you please give us some advice?  My husband had a letter of closure of his account with NatWest during the middle of our mortgage application. Our mortgage broker had applied with them. Meanwhile we contact the bank who advised us they could not tell us why they decided to close the bank account!  We then assumed it would be because of my husband using his current account as a business account, but we have look into it and my husbands business is a sole trader and their is no law stating this is illegal. He has all his taxes up to date with an accountant and HMRC.
My husband also received a inheritance which he also has the documentation to prove this.
When the Mortgage application was declined, we advised by our mortgage broker to request a SAR report before trying another lender! 

NatWest have also declined to provide us with the SAR!! 

The lady from the branch has raised a complaint on my husband behalf. I have been researching and it seems that NatWest cannot refuse us a SAR according to GDPR act.

Could you please advise us who we can contact to get this matter resolved, otherwise we risk losing the property that we’ve put an offer and was accepted. It our forever home!! 

Kindest Regards 

KFReid

ACG

There is nothing illegal about using a personal account as a business account but it could be against the banks terms and conditions. 

In terms of the SAR, if you want to provide an explanation as to why they declined your application they can refuse to do that for a number of reasons - GDPR explicitly states this. Certain laws supersede GDPR. If the SAR is to just ask for what information they hold on you, then yes they would have to comply but they can omit certain information for commercial reasons or legal. 

KFReid

So what can we do? 

ACG

What are you hoping to achieve by getting the SAR? If it is to just find out why they declined you, I would drop it and move on.  Trying to force a multi-million pound company to give you something they dont want to provide could take weeks/months/years or even never happen. 

I assume the broker has a copy of your credit report(s)? Assuming there is nothing on there, then it should just be a case of finding a new lender. Applications get declined, we do not always agree with them but in the current climate it will happen more. We had a case declined with Natwest in December, reapplied in Feb and the customer was accepted.