We recently moved house and wanted to port our Barclays mortgage, but it took so long over the paperwork that our chain looked set to collapse, so we switched to another lender.
Despite the delays at its end, Barclays says we still have to pay an early repayment charge (ERC) of more than £13,000.
We asked for a new mortgage offer back in February via our broker. But, with completion set for the end of April to maintain the chain, by mid-April we were worried it had not been forthcoming.
We had fielded endless requests for information and documents, but could not understand why. Our financial circumstances are not unusual and our loan-to-value lower than 50%.
Our broker advised us to apply for a mortgage with Halifax as a back-up, and it was able to produce one within six days.
We made a formal complaint and this was upheld. But instead of offering to waive the ERC, Barclays is offering us £200.
It has since upped that to £800, but comes nowhere near making good our loss.
JH, Lewes
House moves are the stuff of nightmares, and you feel let down by Barclays. However, in the letter confirming your complaint had been upheld, its investigator found evidence of “slight delays caused by us”, not “substantial” ones, as it sought financial information to address affordability concerns.
I asked Barclays to reconsider, and it acknowledges that “our customers experienced some delays with the porting of their mortgage rate”. It adds: “We’ve apologised and offered redress; however, we are not in a position to waive the ERC as the customer chose to move to another lender during the ERC period.”
The ERC is a standard part of a mortgage’s terms and conditions, and your broker would have known that switching within the penalty period was the nuclear option, especially as the Barclays offer did come through, albeit at the 11th hour.
This is a huge amount of money, so I think it is worth putting your case to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
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