Steve Brockman, director of A2B Mtg Co, said Abbey had still to formally acknowledge it had received a BTL application he sent to it on 9 February, yet a phone call to Abbey on 21 February revealed a valuation had just been instructed.
Brockman further claimed Abbey was unable to cope with the level of applications it was receiving and was only answering phone calls in its service department between 1pm-5.30pm on weekdays.
He said: “Abbey say it is making a serious market entrance, but why hasn’t it got the service and staff in place to cope? You have to send postal paper applications to Abbey and you don’t know whether it’s got there unless it’s acknowledged. Abbey offers the service, but then seems surprised to get the level of business.”
Abbey entered the buy-to-let market in November 2006, with an aggressive strategy to rapidly build its market share. This was its first move into the specialist arena.
An Abbey spokesman said phone lines had been closed outside 1-5.30pm to allow its teams to spend more time processing applications and customers were being re-routed to their local regional office. He added: “The systems we have put in place are helping to resolve the situation and we expect normal service to resume shortly.”
