In my case the mortgage was approved for transfer & mortgage approval went through - I was given the full amount of compensation from impact in 2008 to December 31st, 2017. But this differs from most others as, as one bank official put it, my case at been noticed at the highest levels of the bank. However, the money is accumulating again since 1st Jan 2018 and that will only be paid to me upon transfer of the mortgage.
The amount approved for transfer was the mortgage amount on the last mortgage statement date available (when calculating the money owed in December 2017) which was 31st December, 2016.
As the contract was not the original contract I would not sign it - I also wanted the contract (or offer, as I think the bank officials refer to it) to be reviewed by my solicitor prior to signing it as I had no independent advice and the bank would not do this. I also noted that the term of the mortgae was not the original term of the mortgage ( I had reduced the term upon moving it) this was eventually corrected in their offer though the bank continue to refer to this as giving me 'an extended term'. They try to frame things to make the customer look as difficult and uncooperative as possible though it is them who are entirely uncooperative.
I twice met with them & twice one of their advisors tried to get me to sign the contract sight unseen - a senior Ulster Bank official was then to try to sort out these issues, however, he issued a letter of final response, without any attempt at resolving the issues. The best analogy I can give is that it is a bit like a divorce, they're the cause of the divorce and they are insisting on deciding the settlement, and will consider nothing other than what they deem fair, which really, is deeply unsatisfactory.
As there was no point in going to the Ombudsman at this stage (the Ombudsman can not do anything until the Central Bank's Examination is over) I got a solicitor's letter sent out to them which had little effect. I also wrote to the finance committee who were given an undertaking by the then interim CEO that it would get sorted. This was in mid June. The bank continued to play for time over the next six weeks and did not make any attempt to resolve the issue, though again, they said it was being considered at the highest levels. Not even a letter of response was issued in the end.
GDPR requests were then done but these were incomplete as no internal information was provided nor meeting notes from the two meetings held, amongst other missing items.
So where it currently stands is that there is an offer there should I be willing to accept a lesser contract - I have submitted an appeal to BDO in the last number of weeks, including the contract issue in it. I haven't heard anything back yet but the Christmas Post has been incredibly slow, so will see where it goes from here.
I haven't had an offer of a sum of money in liu of the mortgage being transferred back to Ulster Bank but I presume this is as the property is back in equity and that I am currently able to get mortgage approval required to move it back