My solicitor has damaged my credit rating just as I am applying for a new mortgsge

nogenius

Last month I sold our family home of 23 years. The sale date was Friday, 29 August which coincided with the due date od my mortgage payment. I really didn't think I needed to make a payment that day as the mortgage was being repaid from the sale of the house. I now realise that due to a delay of a couple of hours in receiving funds from the buyer our solicitor did not make the payment until the following working day. It was two weeks later when I received a message from one of the credit reference websites telling me that I should look at my file as something had changed. You can imagine my horror to discover my mortgage account with TSB was marked as delinquent because of the missed instalment. I have contacted TSB to point out that the morrtgage was actually being redeemed but had been delayed because the CHAPS deadline had passed (apparently) until the next working day. TSB's attitude was that the mark on the account can't be removed and that my solicitor should have warned me the payment was going to be delayed and the likely consequencies, so I could elect to make an extra payment. What infuriates me is that there is no flexibility shown by TSB and any interest in the damage this has done. The lender for my new mortgage has asked for an explanation and this has become traumatic. My score dropped from excellent to fair. Is there anything I can do to fix this or do I have to suck it up?

Ayr_Rage

nogenius said:

Last month I sold our family home of 23 years. The sale date was Friday, 29 August which coincided with the due date od my mortgage payment. I really didn't think I needed to make a payment that day as the mortgage was being repaid from the sale of the house. I now realise that due to a delay of a couple of hours in receiving funds from the buyer our solicitor did not make the payment until the following working day. It was two weeks later when I received a message from one of the credit reference websites telling me that I should look at my file as something had changed. You can imagine my horror to discover my mortgage account with TSB was marked as delinquent because of the missed instalment. I have contacted TSB to point out that the morrtgage was actually being redeemed but had been delayed because the CHAPS deadline had passed (apparently) until the next working day. TSB's attitude was that the mark on the account can't be removed and that my solicitor should have warned me the payment was going to be delayed and the likely consequencies, so I could elect to make an extra payment. What infuriates me is that there is no flexibility shown by TSB and any interest in the damage this has done. The lender for my new mortgage has asked for an explanation and this has become traumatic. My score dropped from excellent to fair. Is there anything I can do to fix this or do I have to suck it up?

How can providing an explanation of a simple matter of timing be traumatic?

The new lender should understand the timeline and ignore it.

The data reported to the CRA by TSB is correct, your payment was late.

It won't be removed.

Your mythical "score" is just that, ignore it.

As an aside, I recently obtained an Argos Card and spent £400 out of the credit limit of £750, only one CRA has dropped my "score" (by 22 points) and I received an email "warning" too, I'm not crying into my beer.

eskbanker

nogenius said:

The lender for my new mortgage has asked for an explanation and this has become traumatic. My score dropped from excellent to fair. Is there anything I can do to fix this or do I have to suck it up?

As above, that doesn't really explain what's happening - has the new lender actually indicated that they're contemplating changing the terms of the deal or any other tangible impact, or is it just a case of clarifying the sequence of events?

flaneurs_lobster

Ayr_Rage said:

As an aside, I recently obtained an Argos Card and spent £400 out of the credit limit of £750, only one CRA has dropped my "score" (by 22 points) and I received an email "warning" too, I'm not crying into my beer.

Yes but was that drop 22 points out of 1000 or 22 out of 999 or 22 out of 710. Because clearly it makes a difference.

Nasqueron

flaneurs_lobster said:

Ayr_Rage said:

As an aside, I recently obtained an Argos Card and spent £400 out of the credit limit of £750, only one CRA has dropped my "score" (by 22 points) and I received an email "warning" too, I'm not crying into my beer.

Yes but was that drop 22 points out of 1000 or 22 out of 999 or 22 out of 710. Because clearly it makes a difference.

Only in the sense of a fictitious number