Are banks’ online mortgage offers subject to advertising standards law?

visidigi

Straightbat said:

In reply to several comments, not passing affordability checks is not the issue.  That is a secondary matter. It is a case of misleadingly offering a product that you have no intention of doing affordability checks on. 

As already said, if other banks can withdraw products publicly in a timely fashion, why can’t Lloyds?  The fact that so many others did would seem to bely the validity of the proposed exceptional circumstances get out clause I am afraid!

Re the applicability of advertising standards, whether or not they were a) applicable b) enforceable was actually a main point of my original enquiry, not presumptions on my part.  However, a company which does not adhere to reasonable guidelines which then adversely affects a consumer (who could have applied elsewhere while he still had time) should reasonably be held to account; and whether standards are enforceable or not, could reasonably be expected to offer redress if possible.

So your complain is purely about how long Llloyds have taken to pull the ad - they are compelled to remove it at the earliest reasonable opportunity - which they may have not be able to do because the other systems were crashing/failing around them and the ability to change web content etc is likely linked in someway to the same infrastructure.

The access issues to the portal etc are all a separate issue because the governance on the ad itself is just that it can trigger a fine, a slap on the wrists. It won't bring your opportunity to get the proposed mortgage back.

The criteria can be anything they like - not just affordability and value - they go through the whole application from the ground up once submitted.

This all happened to me on Brexit night - I tried to convert a stack of fine English into dollars - the system was flooded with requests, couldn't trade them, gave up - woke up after the verdict - dollar had tanked, nothing doing because I hadn't completed the request. That same company accidentally posted the wrong rate for dollars a year earlier and sent an email after the event asking for the reversal due to the mistake - I politely declined as i had completed the contact, they replied enjoy spending the money!

It happens. The best you can hope for here is the ad gets Lloyds a slap.

sheramber

Would you rather you have been able  to complete the form and then were turned down?

I was reading to day that a mortgage offer can be withdraw at any time  up to completion.

So , even getting a mortgage offer accepted is not guarantee you will actually get the money.

Straightbat

I know it’s not just affordability checks - someone mentioned property risk for example, and that’s all part of it too - another one of the routine checks - in that case part of the standard valuation - which all come out in the wash.  

But when will the penny drop that this is not the issue - the issue is than an offer to put your data into the wash has been made, you are given the washing token but the machine stops on rinse and hold.

Neither has the point been taken on board that other equally big lenders in the same circumstances withdrew products instead of leaving them in the shop window to draw unwitting consumers in to direct them to an advisor, arguably to get their custom for a more expensive product instead before they go off elsewhere.  

Whether when push comes to shove the lender can win the exceptional circumstances argument despite competitors handling them appropriately, they should not need policing to be able to recognise where they have failed to meet acceptable standards, and demonstrating this to them could be all the prompt they need to offer redress without it.  If not and one felt strongly enough, they all have complaints procedures too.

Thank you all for your thoughtful responses.

MobileSaver

Straightbat said:

the product is no longer available the next day and you can no longer access the partly populated application form…

they should be duty bound to allow you to complete the application.

Do we have any redress in law? 

1) There was no consideration and therefore no contract between you and Lloyds.

2) If you had filled in the application form they could have declined to offer a mortgage for any reason (except for discrimination against a protected characteristic.)

3) Even if they had initially offered a mortgage they still had the right up until Completion to withdraw the mortgage offer for any reason.

What other lenders did or did not do is immaterial; you have no idea what internal or regulatory steps Lloyds have to go through before they can update their web site and you have no evidence that they deliberately delayed updating their site.

Given the circumstances at the time there is zero chance that the ASA or a court would find against Lloyds because their site wasn't updated until the next day.

Regardless, you have suffered no loss and so what redress do you think you should have?

user1977

And generally, bear in mind this is a large and heavily-regulated sector - unless you're talking about something specific to your own application, it's incredibly unlikely that you'll have hit upon something which nobody else has already thought about.

k3lvc

Straightbat said:

Whether when push comes to shove the lender can win the exceptional circumstances argument despite competitors handling them appropriately, they should not need policing to be able to recognise where they have failed to meet acceptable standards, and demonstrating this to them could be all the prompt they need to offer redress without it.  If not and one felt strongly enough, they all have complaints procedures too.

Nobody's 'winning' anything here. You (or daughter) got caught up in exceptional circumstances. As others have posted they were able to access/progress their applications which suggests the issue was technology based at her end rather than theirs.

Any complaint to a 3rd party seems a massively over the top reaction