Misleading mortgage offer as a result of making overpayments

[gmcg]

Hi all, I wonder if anyone has any advice for us. Figures for illustration...

 

We have an existing Nationwide mortgage 100,000 which we have been making overpayments to over the years total 5000. When we went to the branch to discuss a new mortgage (additional borrowing for new house, porting existing mortgage and increasing the term) we were told that our balance does not include any overpayments. If we were to write to them to agree not to draw down the 5000 overpayments they would come off the balance making it 95,000. We agreed to this in writing and were given a kfi and subsequently a mortgage offer which showed our balance as 95,000. Now that we come to exchange our solicitor has received a statement from NW saying that we still owe 100,000. NW now tell me that the 100,000 always did include our overpayments and we have been misinformed. In other words, if we had not made overpayments our balance would have been 105,000. The original advisor is not at work at the moment.

 

I've not lost any money but we did make an offer on our new property based on what we thought we owed. Given that we signed a mortgage offer stating that we owe 95,000 on our existing mortgage are they not legally bound to honour this. I have emails to prove this is what we were advised which show balance and then balance minus overpayments.

 

The mortgage advisors are looking into this for me, they've been very helpful but I could just do with some advice if anyone knows where we stand. Thanks

[martin2006]

what do your annual mortgage statements show, do they show where you have overpaid?

[gmcg]

The online statements show each monthly payent e.g. normally 1000 but 1500 on the months where we overpaid. I've not looked at the annual ones. The discrepancy is that the original advice was that the balance on their system didnt include the overpayments so she did a kfi and offer based on the balance minus overpayments. I've had it confirmed by 3 people at nationwide that this was the wrong advice and that the balance always includes any overpayments. So she's deducted them for a 2nd time whengiving me an illustration and subsequent offer. I'm fairly convinced that is true. Just dont know where i stand given that the mortgage offer had the incorrect 95000 figure not the 100000 as in my example. I've been badly mislead and signed the offer based on existing mortgage of 95000

[martin2006]

Sounds like its a genuine mistake by the adviser, wouldnt hold your breath about getting them to honour the original offer tho.

[gmcg]

Genuine, repeated, massive mistake. Isnt a mortgage offer legally binding on their part? I've been mis sold to at least would expect compensation of some sort?