Hiya,

My fiance and I have already exchanged contracts and given up our rented flat and are due to complete on buying our first house on Monday.

Our IFA's called us yesterday to say that our mortgage offer has now been withdrawn due to an "arrear" on a credit card from October 2008.

This was not a problem when we were first approved for the mortgage but now is enough of a problem for them to take our mortgage away.

We are going to be homeless as we gave up our lease on the basis of the mortgage they approved and is valid until 31 January. We have an 11 month old baby and this is really taking its toll - we dont know where to turn.

Can anybody give us any advice on what we can do or if we have a leg to stand on with this?

Thanks for any help you can give.

Hi All!

V.Stressed,in reply to your post:

I am very sorry to read about your problem.

Please answer the following questions:

1.When did you apply for the mortgage?

2.Have you paid for a valuation fee on the property that you are buying?

3.Has your solicitor passed on any deposit funds to the seller's solicitor? If yes,how much?

The answers to the above questions should hopefully enable me to assist you further.

Cheers,

Nightmare4banks

Have you checked with your solicitor had they already requested the funds from the Mortgage Provider or carried out any works ready for the completion date with their approval? If they had written and recieved a reply that monies will be recieved ok via solicitors and then your solicitor exchanged on this basis you might have a case to argue your point.

Similiar thing happened to me and I have checked with a solicitor and they seem to think I have a case for compensation. Shame it was too late when I found out though, although it was a BTL not a home for me to live in fortunately.

Check with your solicitors as to what they have done already before you do any further.

I hope something works out for you. Let us know how you get on.

I agree with chillin, I think you do have a case for a serious amount of compensation....

Hi All!

 

V.Stressed,in reply to your post:

 

I am very sorry to read about your problem.

 

Please answer the following questions:

 

1.When did you apply for the mortgage?

 

2.Have you paid for a valuation fee on the property that you are buying?

 

 

3.Has your solicitor passed on any deposit funds to the seller's solicitor? If yes,how much?

 

The answers to the above questions should hopefully enable me to assist you further.

 

Cheers,

 

Nightmare4banks

Im in the same situation, Ive exchanged & I now have no mortgage. A new credit check was bizarrely done on me on 27.1.10, 6 days after I had exchanged and was the 3rd one they had done. Unfortunately my credit score was slightly lower than before so they just withdrew their offer.

The application initially was applied for in Aug 09 and the offer came through on 25.8.09 and lasted 6 months. I paid for a valuation which was done and was all fine, but on exchange my solictor sent £20500 which was 10% and will now lose that. Im distraught I complete on 12th Feb so I only have 10 working days left. I have never missed a payment on anything & have an exemplery credit record.Can anyone offer any help or advice?

It will be the credit searches themselves lowering your score, there is plenty of evidence that having a search done lowers your score considerably and the more the same company searches the more the score lowers. Id contact all the authorities and trading standards and complain about the companies involved...

Im sorry to hear about this Angrybanks, but first thing I would do is to contact your solicitor and ask him did he request the funds upon exchange and did he recieve acknowledgement from the lender that monies will be sent. If he did then tell them to phone and write to the lender and explain that you will be taking proceedings agsint them for failing to keep with the mortgage offer after confirmations etc.

Get some legal advice quick on this before the deposit goes.

Please keep us updated.

I think that your solicitor needs to contact the lender and explain the situation and ask them to honour the original offer. They need to be firm and speak to a senior manager and explain that you will be seeking compensation for the money paid out so far plus stress etc.

I doubt if they have requested funds at this stage but I could be wrong. I suspect that the lender has decided that they do not want to lend due to a change of circumstances at their end. They may have been taken over or have a funding problem.

Your solicitor needs to push this firmly and try and get them to reverse the decision.

Pedross

Thanks for your responses but no unfortunately altho the funds were requested they just sent back the letter saying they were withdrawing the offer. Me, my solicitor and financial advisor have been onto them but they wont budge. They say I can appeal but even if thats successful they will need to do another credit check which pushes my score down again!

I have tried emailing the Chief exec & my MP so will wait for them to respond.

I may try & see if the media are interested as I want to warn people for the future to get a clause put in the contract that if the bank pulls out after exchange, the buyer cant lose their deposit.

Hi All!

TWO POINTS

POINT 1

REGARDING THE DEPOSIT THAT HAS BEEN PASSED ONTO THE SELLER'S SOLICITOR

1.As others have mentioned the best course of action here would be to complain to your instructing solicitor or sue him/her because no sensible solicitor would exchange contracts with the buyer's deposit funds and without having received the mortgage funds.

2.The solicitor should have kept the deposit funds in his/her account and notified the seller's solicitor of such rather than send the deposit funds only - An utterly daft thing to do!

A solicitor like that is not acting in his/her client's own interests and should have never been allowed to become a solicitor in the first place!

POINT 2

WITHDRAWAL OF MORTGAGE OFFER

1.Please always remember that credit is not a right but it is earned.

2.So if a mortgage offer has been withdrawn there is little one can do unless there is strict evidence in your hand that will prove inaccuracies on your credit files which had caused the withdrawal of the mortgage offer.

3.However,you should be able to get a refund on valuation fees and/or legal fees if either a valuer and/or solicitor had been instructed and based on the fact of the then existing mortgage offer.

4.Complain to the FOS because if mortgage companies decline folks at the 11th hour and still rake in fees i.e. valuation fees.

Anyway,just my 2p's worth!

I hope this helps.

If anyone has any questions,please feel free to ask.

Cheers,

Nightmare4banks

You have to investigate what has your solicitor actually recieved from the lender in terms of acknowledgement that they are sending funds out for completion etc? Normally they would exchange on the basis that the funds will definetley be there on completion.

I would have expected the solicitor to have called up the mortgage funds into their client account BEFORE exchanging contracts:confused:. In recent years lenders seem to have acquired an annoying habit of withdrawing offers before the buyer moves in. A practice for which they should be financially punished:mad:

They can do as many searches as they wish on a single transaction but knowing the effect they can have on someones CR only the 1st search needs to be recorded any additional ones from the same source do not, they can be done without leaving a trace ........ and they know it:-x

Did anything actiually happen with this thread? I would be interested to know if there was a happy ending?

I have a similar nightmare just unfolding and would appreciate any help/advice from the forum as it seems we are about to lose everything.

I am a discharged bankrupt since Jan 2008. We approached a broker and made this fact abundantly clear and supplied a copy of the discharge along with the other usual paperwork/proofs required at this stage. Halifax offered a mortgage so we found a house. Our first mortgage offer expired after we exchanged but before completion. All deposits had already been paid. On the day of completion we were advised that Halifax requested the funds back from our solicitor because of the bankruptcy.

It was explained that it wasn't the bankruptcy but the expiration of the offer. A new offer at a slightly increased rate was then received. We all began the arrangements again. I then received a further call saying that we did not have an offer as it was a 'mistake'. I have this offer in writing along with a letter explaining when my first payment would be taken.

I called Halifax myself and they explained they had no record, written or verbal of my discharge, maintaining they did not know of the bankruptcy in the first place. They also said I did not come up on their searches as they had an incorrect address for me. I asked if that was the case, how had I received the offer at my address.

I have now been advised 7 days after the completion date that Halifax are now declining to offer a mortgage. My broker advises that this is due to missed credit card payments or 'something'.

I have not held a credit card since my bankruptcy and the only entries on my file relate to that. There has been no change to my credit file whatsoever since first applying for this mortgage - I have the copy from then and have compared it today's.

My credit score is high and I have disclosed from the outset my entire history.

How can this happen? Why is it allowed to happen? Please help.

I have a similar nightmare just unfolding and would appreciate any help/advice from the forum as it seems we are about to lose everything.

I am a discharged bankrupt since Jan 2008. We approached a broker and made this fact abundantly clear and supplied a copy of the discharge along with the other usual paperwork/proofs required at this stage. Halifax offered a mortgage so we found a house. Our first mortgage offer expired after we exchanged but before completion. All deposits had already been paid. On the day of completion we were advised that Halifax requested the funds back from our solicitor because of the bankruptcy.

 

It was explained that it wasn't the bankruptcy but the expiration of the offer. A new offer at a slightly increased rate was then received. We all began the arrangements again. I then received a further call saying that we did not have an offer as it was a 'mistake'. I have this offer in writing along with a letter explaining when my first payment would be taken.

 

I called Halifax myself and they explained they had no record, written or verbal of my discharge, maintaining they did not know of the bankruptcy in the first place. They also said I did not come up on their searches as they had an incorrect address for me. I asked if that was the case, how had I received the offer at my address.

 

I have now been advised 7 days after the completion date that Halifax are now declining to offer a mortgage. My broker advises that this is due to missed credit card payments or 'something'.

 

I have not held a credit card since my bankruptcy and the only entries on my file relate to that. There has been no change to my credit file whatsoever since first applying for this mortgage - I have the copy from then and have compared it today's.

 

My credit score is high and I have disclosed from the outset my entire history.

 

How can this happen? Why is it allowed to happen? Please help.

Your solicitor & financial advisor MUST between them sort this out asap They will be the quickest means of resolving it also they'll carry more clout than you

My FA has been replaced and is now an estate agent in the same company; the company FD was the bearer of the bad news that no offer is to be forthcoming - he has indicated that in his opinion the fault lay with the solicitor. A conveyancing agent was handling my case until just before exchange. She went on holiday and another person in the organisation requested the funds from me. Since the failure on completion I have been passed to an actual solicitor who is apparently conversing with his senior partner over this weekend. (I don't see how that will help immediately as the funds have been returned to Halifax - apparently they couldn't 'review' the case unless funds were returned).

What I just don't get in all this is the terms and conditions quoted: they state the offer may be withdrawn if there is either a fraud, a change in my circumstances that would have influenced their decision at the time, or some negative change to the properties value. The ONLY change is that I earn substantially more now than I did when I applied for the mortgage.