Ian Crampton, sales director at Ferndown Limited, contacted Mortgage Introducer with his complaint after receiving conflicting information from Nationwide resulting in the completion delay.
He submitted a mortgage to Nationwide and on receipt of the offer noticed no mention of the £99 broker fee even though Ferndown had included the figure on the application form and produced a KFI including the fee.
He said: “When I rang to query the missing figure I was told that this fee does not have to appear on the offer and that ‘Nationwide has no plans to include these fees on the mortgage offer at this time or in the future’.
“As my understanding is that as a ‘responsible lender’ these fees form an intrinsic part of the mortgage contract and therefore should be stated clearly on any offer of mortgage as well as any KFI, I was a little taken aback.”
Crampton contacted Nationwide further, who later admitted that the fee should be on the offer and another offer was submitted. He added: “It has taken three weeks to sort this out. It’s the lenders fault yet we have to take the hassle. We’re already putting in more hours for less mortgage business thanks to regulation, we could well do without the extra work.”
Jackie Lawrence, media relations manager at Nationwide, said: “I don’t know the individual case so it is difficult to comment but all our systems are set up so that the fee comes out on the offer, providing brokers have included all relevant information including fees. Staff are fully trained and this is a very rare situation.”
