Help... I'm being messed around with mortgage offers.

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seasonalbiz
seasonalbiz Posts: 80 Forumite
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in Mortgages & endowments
I was approved and had a 6month fixed rate mortgage offer from Santander when I made an offer on a property in September last year... but because there was an issue with a covenant on the property, the offer expired in February.

I have got the covenant issue resolved but there is still some legal work to be done around that, however its a chain free sale so we're now expecting "a regular" conveyancing period, but as I am self employed and single - I don't have a massive choice of lenders available so I wanted to re-secure the lending before I commenced conveyancing.

When I re-applied in March Santander made available a new, higher fixed interest rate product... my broker applied... we waited, and waited. Santander then rejected that application as although they had originally deemed me as a first time buyer (I've jointly owned one property previously, with my ex wife which was sold in 2013, which I made the broker aware of)... he told me Santander had changed their T's & C's and no longer classed me as a first time buyer (although I have no idea why they classed me as a FTB in the first place, as clearly I'm not). So I was back to square one.

In April we applied for another product, once more with a higher interest rate than the first, and the second, my broker applied... Santander decided they wanted another valuation done, so we waited, and waited. This time I was approved once more... the broker told me I was approved, he sent me screenshots of the approval from his broker portal.

I instructed the solicitor to proceed as it looked like we were good to go. Santander once more took ages to issue the paperwork, but it was finally marked as despatched on 2nd May.

This morning I've received the offer in the post. The letter is dated 4th May, today is 12th May and the offer expires on 15th May.

I'm speechless.

Does anyone know if there is anything I can do?... could the financial ombudsman help, or rather could I threaten to make a complaint in an attempt to push them to extend this offer, its ridiculous - who can buy a house on a Monday and complete by Tuesday? :(:(:(

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  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
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    Have you rung Santander to discuss the matter?
  • seasonalbiz
    seasonalbiz Posts: 80 Forumite
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    Thrugelmir wrote: »
    Have you rung Santander to discuss the matter?

    Not as yet, the offer just arrived in the post this morning... and I've not had any direct contact with them to date, as the broker has been the intermediary.

    I feel I would need to know what, if any right, I have to complain about their behaviour before I make any contact.
  • Bimbly
    Bimbly Posts: 483 Forumite
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    With any complaints proceedure outside of the organisation, you have to exhaust the complaints proceedure inside the organisation. When you ring Santander, say you want to make a complaint and it gets passed to their complaints team. It's only after all that that you can look elsewhere.

    But it could simply be a typo on the letter. They wrote May, but meant another month. Worth a quick call to ask...
  • Thrugelmir
    Thrugelmir Posts: 89,546 Forumite
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    seasonalbiz wrote: »

    I feel I would need to know what, if any right, I have to complain about their behaviour before I make any contact.

    The fact that than a previous offer expired and that their internal lending criteria changed is simply unfortunate. No grounds for complaint. As you say yourself they are one of the few lenders to even offer a solution. Therefore hardly surprising that criteria has itself tightened. Lenders do follow each other when it comes to commercial business decisions. Often in response to wider macro events.

    Offer contains most likely a date typo. That your solicitor will no doubt question in any event.
  • seasonalbiz
    seasonalbiz Posts: 80 Forumite
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    Bimbly wrote: »
    With any complaints proceedure outside of the organisation, you have to exhaust the complaints proceedure inside the organisation. When you ring Santander, say you want to make a complaint and it gets passed to their complaints team. It's only after all that that you can look elsewhere.

    But it could simply be a typo on the letter. They wrote May, but meant another month. Worth a quick call to ask...

    Will go down this avenue on Monday then, I thought these letters would be automatically not manually generated so a typo would be unlikely, but it if is - then happy days.
    Thrugelmir wrote: »
    The fact that than a previous offer expired and that their internal lending criteria changed is simply unfortunate. No grounds for complaint.As you say yourself they are one of the few lenders to even offer a solution. Therefore hardly surprising that criteria has itself tightened. Lenders do follow each other when it comes to commercial business decisions. Often in response to wider macro events.

    Agreed, the previous offer expiring and change in lending criteria isn't grounds for complaint.

    However, in the event its not a typo - and they've conducted further credit checks on me and made an offer which isn't of use to anyone (if its only valid for two working days in the customers possession), then is that not a fair reason to complain?

    My Experian credit score is around 970/1000 but if I have to go to another lender, in my experience lenders get cold feet when they see several mortgage applications on your record irrelevant of your credit score, so the offers available to me could dry up further through no fault of my own.
  • kingstreet
    kingstreet Posts: 38,766 Forumite
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    Santander made the same mistake on one of our offers.

    They issued a revised offer the following week with the correct drawdown deadline.

    Santander dates are drawdown deadlines for the product, not offer expiry dates.
    I am a mortgage broker. You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a Mortgage Adviser, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice. Please do not send PMs asking for one-to-one-advice, or representation.
  • seasonalbiz
    seasonalbiz Posts: 80 Forumite
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    kingstreet wrote: »
    Santander made the same mistake on one of our offers.

    They issued a revised offer the following week with the correct drawdown deadline.

    Santander dates are drawdown deadlines for the product, not offer expiry dates.

    Thanks for sharing, you know how stressful these things are when various problems are cropping up along the way. :)
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