Was Coop's mortgage rate cut genuine?

Jmoo

Alright it might be pushing it to say so, but the Cooperative Bank had some very competitive mortgage offers in early January which they very quickly pulled from the market. 

We got a 3-year deal through a broker that was £60 cheaper a month compared to all other lenders.

As we'd used the brokers for an offer from HSBC it seemed fairly straight forward, all the information had been processed before so no questions asked. 

A valuer was sent and all the information was sent off.

We were then informed the Coop had been inundated it was taking two weeks for a response. 

The Coop allegedly asked for more information - again we'd already provided this data to the broker so again it didn't require any input from us. 

We were then told it would be another two weeks. 

That passed and we heard nothing. They were still busy. As we wanted to complete on 1 March we were told we were being escalated through the partnerships manager. But still there were many cases in front of us. 

We were told two weeks ago we'd have an answer, but still nothing. Another week passed and still nothing. This week they say their systems were under maintenance.

Every time I try to ring them I'm passed to different departments who say they can't help and pass me to another. Each time there's up to an hour's wait. 

When I asked for the complaints department they said they didn't have one specifically to help me with this. When I tried ringing a number on their complaints webpage I was told it was closed despite saying it was open until 6pm. 

When I queried this on Twitter I was told that isn't the complaints number they use. I pointed out it's clearly listed on their website as such. They won't provide me an alternative. 

This feels extraordinary that I can't get an answer about a mortgage applied for seven weeks ago. I've heard nothing from their solicitors so I'm guessing we won't be able to complete in time.

I have a feeling the broker doesn't get the same level of commission from this as other banks, so the process has been slow, and they keep reminding me I have the HSBC offer at £60 more to fall back on.

It seems many of us are left unlikely to complete any time soon. Is it worth pursuing? 

MorningcoffeeIV

It's not clear where the 'scam' is....

(Not that it would be a scam of course)

Hoenir

Jmoo said:

Alright it might be pushing it to say so, but the Cooperative Bank had some very competitive mortgage offers in early January which they very quickly pulled from the market. 

Each seperate mortgage product will be granted a finite amount of funding. Once allocated, i.e. applied for, the door will be closed. That's the nature of running a mortgage book top down on a risk management basis. Mortgage lenders aren't a supermarket trying to sell as many cans of baked beans as possible. Far more nuanced. 

Jmoo

Hoenir said:

Jmoo said:

Alright it might be pushing it to say so, but the Cooperative Bank had some very competitive mortgage offers in early January which they very quickly pulled from the market. 

Each seperate mortgage product will be granted a finite amount of funding. Once allocated, i.e. applied for, the door will be closed. That's the nature of running a mortgage book top down on a risk management basis. Mortgage lenders aren't a supermarket trying to sell as many cans of baked beans as possible. Far more nuanced. 

The door was open when I applied. That doesn't seem to be the discussion. 

ACG

It was a genuine product. 
Co-op cant handle a large influx of business (I used to work for them), they are a small bank so going top of the tables for quite a lot of products I do not understand the reasoning behind it. 

They will get through to your application, but in terms of time - how long is a piece of string. 

In terms of commission, if I used co-op I would receive £370 per £100k mortgage. If I used HSBC I would get £380. 
Unless your mortgage is £1m, the difference is less than £100, and in all honesty I would not even notice the difference between £3,700 and £3,800 if it were a million. 

Co-op are either good or shocking in my opinion, but you are far more likely to see the shocking side. 

The upside (potentially for you) is that if Coventry buy them, you will likely end up being with a very good lender indirectly whose customer service is one of the best. 

kingstreet

Usually when Coop is top of the table, we give our clients a choice of the purgatory of an application with them, or second ranked which may be all of 0.1% pa worse where we will get from application to offer in two weeks or less.

Jmoo

They've now come back to me and said they are still waiting on a bank statement so won't be processing it until then. Baffled as it was all supplied to the broker six weeks ago.

ex09053

I applied on 16th Jan via a broker and still no offer in sight (for a remortgage). Shocking is an understatement. 

ACG

ex09053 said:

I applied on 16th Jan via a broker and still no offer in sight (for a remortgage). Shocking is an understatement. 

I am not co-ops biggest fan, in fact I would go as far as to say I would try to avoid them. But 5 weeks?! Are you sure something has not been missed as that seems excessive even for them. 

ex09053

ACG said:

ex09053 said:

I applied on 16th Jan via a broker and still no offer in sight (for a remortgage). Shocking is an understatement. 

I am not co-ops biggest fan, in fact I would go as far as to say I would try to avoid them. But 5 weeks?! Are you sure something has not been missed as that seems excessive even for them. 

Latest update on Friday afternoon was that they are conducting their “internal checks”. 

Apparently no more paperwork and no more queries need to be answered as of about 2 weeks ago. 

We had a bit of back and forth due to queries they had regarding my payslip/bank statements and after almost every query the turnaround time was about 20 working days. 

ACG

Ah fair enough. 
Its interesting because like Kingstreet, where we get a lender who is known for shocking service, I give them the option of cheapest or quicker but might cost a little more.