Natasha brought a complaint to us after she had to make several requests before her mortgage lender sent through her outstanding balance, and she didn't think this was fair.
What happened
Natasha made an overpayment to her mortgage and asked her lender to send her details of her new mortgage balance. It took two months, an email and three further phone calls from Natasha to chase, before the lender sent her the information she wanted.
Natasha said the delay was frustrating and put back her plans by a couple of months. She wanted to buy a new property, and her mortgage broker had asked her for written confirmation of her existing mortgage balance in order to work out how much she could afford to spend on her new home.
The lender accepted it had got things wrong and caused a delay. But as it had given Natasha an estimate of her mortgage balance over the phone, it didn’t think it needed to pay her any compensation. But Natasha said she had been clear that her broker needed the balance in writing.
What we said
We considered that the process of buying a house was a long one, and that Natasha didn’t have any concrete plans yet. She hadn’t lost out financially either, for example on a particular rate for instance. But we agreed that the delay would’ve been frustrating, and she’d gone to a reasonable amount of effort in trying to get the information she needed – when that shouldn’t have been necessary.
We didn’t think an apology was enough to remedy the impact of the delay – so we asked the lender to pay £100 compensation to Natasha.