Mortgage Advisor Problems - Extending Mortgage Offer & Completion Approaching!!

noeyebob

Hi all, my partner and I are in a difficult situation and would appreciate any help you could give us.

We put an offer in for a property in November 2025 that was quicky accepted. We were aware at the time of putting this in that the sellers were awaiting a new build to be completed so completion may not be until April/May/June 2026 - this was okay with us.

We consulted a free mortgage advisor (on the recommendation of a friend) to help us find a good mortgage rate - we made the above circumstances very clear to him. Around the end of November 2025, we had found a mortgage product we wanted to go with (and asked our advisor to hold off from applying as we were aware that the offer would only last 6 months if accepted, so would be dangerous with a potential June completion.

However, at the end of November, while my partner and I were away at work, our advisor went ahead without consulting us and applied for the product (against our instruction/will).

This has meant that, as we have still not completed (due to new build delays), our mortgage offer is to expire at the end of May 2026, pre-completion. Therefore, we have been forced to look to extending our offer, which our providers, Santander, are only willing to do at a higher rate of 5.51% (original rate 4.8%). After a while of deliberating on this and any other potential options to get out of this situation (license to occupy, etc) we decided for ease's sake to take this higher offer.

However, this morning, we received a letter from Santander confirming our mortgage has been increased to the 5.51% rate… but it still expires May 30th 2026!! Our advisor has applied for a higher rate for us without an actual extension! We feel completely thrown about and confused by this whole situation.

Is there anything we can do to resolve this situation? Obviously we need a mortgage and I can't see a way to get it completed before May 30th with our extant offer. We have also asked and the sellers are not willing to move out early to facilitate this. We are worried about the idea of applying for a new mortgage with a new provider as we have read/heard that this can affect other mortgage applications (due to credit checks) and leave us with no accepted offers at all.

I appreciate any help or light anybody can shed on this situation please.

Many thanks,

Oscar

ACG

You need to speak to your broker really.

Im sure you can probably apply for another mortgage, but it might be easiest to see what your broker suggests.

If it is a large firm, maybe try to speak to their manager?

noeyebob

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81995480#Comment_81995480

We are awaiting a response from our broker. It just seems counteractive to do such as he seems to have made a mistake every time we've spoken to him. It probably would a good idea to speak to the manager if we are not satisfied with his response when he gets back to us.

We have looked at other mortgages and are actually finding some lower rates and better offers (Lloyds 5.26%), so it makes sense to me to apply for these outside of the advisor. I just don't want to cause issues with hard credit checks etc!

Thanks for your quick response. 😊

ACG

I agree. In your shoes, part of me would want to cut my losses and go direct or via another broker or anything other than going back to the person who messed it up.

I think there is also an argument for them covering at least some of the extra costs of him being a bit trigger happy also - which is why I think it is worth speaking to their manager. But if you decide to go direct, it is unlikely to cause a problem - 1 extra credit check, most credit reports can take especially when the original one was 5 months ago.

kingstreet

Santander is a little odd as it's governed by its product expiry dates rather than traditional offer expiry dates.

For example, a two year fix at 5.51% (95% newbuild product) has an expiry date of 26/02/2027. The non-newbuild product has the same rate, but expires on 30/10/2026.

noeyebob

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81995541#Comment_81995541

Thanks for this. He has come back to us and, having spoken to Santander, told us that they applied the new rate and didn't request a new valuation to extend the offer. He has requested they do this urgently (apparently within the next week) so we should have the new extended offer within the next week…

Looking around at other mortgages, there seem to be some better rates with other providers like Lloyds (5.26%) etc. Our mortgage advisor has told us that our current rate of 5.51% with Santander is the best he can do. Reckon it's worth attempting to apply for this Lloyds one?

How would we attempt to get them to cover some of our extra costs? I'll look for the director/manager (it's Warren & Co) and draft an email to them? Though I am worried this may impact on our (admittedly, already pretty tarnished) relationship with our advisor.

Thanks again.

noeyebob

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81995594#Comment_81995594

Had our advisor held off a few months on applying for our mortgage (as we had wished!), we wouldn't have any of this stress and would have been able to stick with our original, lower rate all the way through to completion 😕

silvercar

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81995600#Comment_81995600

Only if the lower rate was available at the time you would have made the application. Every chance the offer would have been withdrawn by the time you actually made an application. Unless there is a way of finding out what offers were available at the time you would have applied, you are a bit stuck.

When the dust has settled you could make a complaint and quantify your losses, if you can show that a cheaper order was available at the time you would have applied.

ACG

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81995753#Comment_81995753

Rates were generally coming down between November - Feb/March when that war started.

Arguably the rate would have been even lower.