Mortgage valuation - can I get a refund?

btowill

I’m in the process of buying my first property and have an issue that I need to resolve, regarding getting a valuation fee refunded. Here’s the story…

I obtained a mortgage promise from Halifax for a 97% deal on a shared ownership mortgage. I am buying a 35% share, which will cost £47,250 – they were prepared to offer me up to 67K.

I then made an appointment to apply for the mortgage, which all went smoothly. At the end of the interview I paid £315 for the mortgage valuation, which was then carried out the following day and came back with no discrepancies.

However, a week later I received a phone call from Halifax to say that my mortgage had now been declined, and that they would refund me any money I had paid. I was a bit baffled, as I thought the whole point of the application interview was to assess my eligibility prior to proceeding with the valuation, etc. When I pressed the advisor for a reason, she said the system was saying I was not on the electoral role (I am!) and that I had no credit history at my current address (I do, and lots of it!). Luckily, I had recently applied for my credit report from Experian, so went with this in hand to the branch to see if I could sort it out.

I met with the advisor and showed her my credit report, which highlighted the fact that my home address (which is a bit of a strange one!) had been written in different ways on my credit agreements and the electoral role, so she spent the next hour trying various permutations until she finally got their database to come up with my electoral role details (but not my credit history). However, they were now only prepared to offer me a deal that needed a 10% deposit, which there was no way I could have afforded. I left without a mortgage and without any answers as to why I had been refused the product I had initially applied for. I found the advisor particularly frustrating, as she didn’t seem to know her was around their software (she kept losing my details and had to input them again about 5 times!) and couldn’t explain why the offer had gone through to start with but was only now being rejected. I think she may be who they based the ‘computer says no’ character on in Little Britain!

Luckily I have since successfully arranged a new mortgage with another lender, but am still waiting for Halifax to refund the money I paid for the mortgage valuation. I dropped in a letter to confirm that I did not want to proceed with the alternative product and that I wanted them to refund the valuation as discussed.

Being a first time buyer, I feel a little unsure as to my rights, as the whole process is so foreign to me. I’ve been looking through the original promise and it does state that the valuation fee is non-refundable, so I’m now worried they may not pay me back.

Based on my circumstances, am I entitled to a refund?

I feel like I want to appeal, or at the very least write a letter of complaint about the way my application was dealt with, as I realised just how little had been explained to me by Halifax when I went for the second interview with my current mortgage provider.

Any advice would be really appreciated – sorry this is such a lengthy post!

Conrad

From the info you have given I would think Halifax will refund, although legally speaking they probably do not have to.

The ace in your pack is know as TCF or "Treating customers fairly", which is the central plank at the core of FSA regulation.

If they refuse to pay, write a letter to the compliance department stating "you consider they have not disharged thier duties in a manner comensurate with the prinicples of TCF, given a background where you were an unsuspecting lay person so unable to fully assess the risk presented whereas they have a duty of care to deliver a service appropriate to the needs and level of understanding the client presents"

Leon_W

I'd agree with Conrad on this.

It seems you were led up the garden path by Halifax on this one.

If it were me and I'd given such poor advice and service I probably would have felt morally obliged to refund the fee whether reimbursed by Halifax or not.

However, you were told it was non refundable and they could hide behind this fact, but if the fee was paid because you were told a particular mortgage was available to you and it turns out subsequently that it was not, then I feel the fee was taken under a misrepresentation.

Best of Luck.

btowill

Thank you both for your advice - I think I'll pop into Halifax in my lunch hour and chase it up! Fingers crossed...

doelani

We had problems with Halifax a few years ago after being told mortgage was approved subject to survey they it was declined due to a problem on credit file. We did get the survey fee back but think if I remember reight ti took a few weeks for me to get it