Despite submitting the application in early May, Ken Sives, senior partner of Sives Financial Services, has heard nothing from the mutual to suggest his client’s application is any nearer completion.
Sives said: “Britannia’s system is so slow. Since submitting the application nearly three months ago I have only heard back from it on two occasions to tell me that it is looking into it.
“It has taken so long that I have forgotten exactly what information I have given and the lender has forgotten what it needs from me, if anything. Most lenders pro-cess their applications within a few weeks or give you updates on how the application is coming along, but not Britannia.”
Sives added that as the lender does not provide a proc fee he has had to charge the clients an extra fee to complete the application. He said: “If the client wasn’t with me when I contacted Britannia I dread to think what they would have thought but they know the situation.
“Only a few days ago I was told that the application would come through but then when the client came along expecting to be told it was all sorted, the offer wasn’t ready.”
Lise Bulloch, consumer PR manager at Britannia, was adamant that the delays caused were not necessarily the fault of the lender: “I don’t see where the problem for the application would have come from, although it could well be that the broker hasn’t supplied us with the relevant information.”
Bulloch added that Britannia’s service times reflected favourably with other lenders’. “We are only two weeks behind with our application offers which is the industry norm,” she said.
