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?

