Offset Mortgage - First Active - problems anyone?

J

joda

Guest
Hi, i'm a first time poster.. just wondering if anyone out there has had/is having same experience as us.
We bought our home last summer, went with first active. During the year, we decided the offset mortgage would suit us and approached first active to change mortgage products.that was fine and the process necessary to change over was put in place.
so far so good BUT that was January, it's now the end of May and it's still not changed over.
My husband has given every bit of information asked for promptly, he regularly calls the branch.. i won't even go into all the different reasons/excuses given for dragging of heels on this...
my husband has been in contact with the branch manager a few times to bring his attention to this issue, but nothing has changed..

has anyone else had this problem?
i think we might bring this to the attention of the financial ombudsman, does anyone think this is warranted at this stage?
tks
 
Have you actually got a new loan offer yet or are you not even at that stage. If you have a loan offer, is your solicitor dealing with or are you using the Title insurance crowd? As far as I understand of the offset mtg (from previous experience) you cant just switch as easily as you can between fixed and variable mortgages for example but have to go through the legal process again.
 
Hi, yes we have a new loan offer and it's finally at the legal stage now. but this took months, my husband was actually told the delay was on our side as our solicitor was holding up the process. our solicitor is a close friend and he had not even heard a dickey bird from first active! he fired off a letter straight away and got things moving a bit, but i just can't believe this is normal procedure to be this slow..
we're losing out each month as we have cash in our current account that we haven't invested as we're using it for home refurbishment.
 
In fairness to banks, the customer loan offer and the solicitors copy are usually sent out the same day, so if you physically have a loan offer chances are one went the same day to your solicitor, unless they have wrong name or address for solicitor A lot of the time the solicitor then waits for the customer to contact them, have you signed the legal forms with the solicitor so that he can request the money or did he just not get a copy of it at all. Unless you are on a high interest rate at the moment I wouldnt be too worried about the amount of extra interest you have paid, rate on offset is often a bit higher than the equivalent tracker loan rate.
 
I am a customer of FA and I must say their Customer Service is absolute rubbish.I was applying for a top up loan of 20,000 on my Offset Mortgage and it took months.I would never put myself through that ordeal again for such a relatively small sum of money.With FA you have to scream and shout.Ring your manager every day until the job is complete.Unfortunatly you have to drive the process.You cannot trust anyone to do what they are paid to do.
 
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