Mortgage Scout Cost us £4,000 with poor Advice
Update: When we dealt with a new broker (From Barclays) in the opening two minutes the broker stated all of the pertinent information about getting a deal locked in principal in order to avoid any potential increases and stating that we could revisit it later, had we dealt with this person vs Mortgage Scout, we would be £4,000 better off right now.
In summary, we received poor advice (which we paid for) and lost £4,000. They took no accountability and made no real attempt to resolve it. The missed advice was considered an egregious error by Barclays and Mortgage Scout/MAB simply admitted no fault. Get your advice from free brokers and/or banks, avoid anyone associated with Mortgage Advice Bureau, record your calls and know that you can lock in mortgage rates 6 months in advance and make changes later.
We decided to get our mortgage advice from Mortgage Scout because on the surface they looked like a professional advisor group with a paid-for service, since we were initially first-time buyers we decided we needed very comprehensive advice. The first fixed mortgage went great and had no problem at all, it was when that expired that things went wrong.
During our conversation we were proposed a variant mortgage type, we were leaning towards fixed but wondered if we should discuss it with our families so our mortgage advisor set a date for a second meeting and warned the rates could change. The problem here is that our advisor didn’t tell us that we could have locked in the offer and then change it later (You can do this 6 months before your fixed mortgage is due to end, provided you stayed with the same bank that you were planning to). He also, unfortunately, booked our second meeting for the day after the publicly announced Bank of England meeting where they would be discussing changes to the mortgage rates..
I honestly believe our mortgage advisor did these things in error, but as inexperienced buyers paying for a service, I would have expected to be informed of these important and helpful details. The result was that our second meeting occurred after the Bank of England meeting and the rates increased dramatically, in a day we lost just shy of £4,000. I called up Mortgage Scout and Barclays looking for a solution.
Barclays made some important notes here, after calling through they advised that if I had spoken to them directly then they would consider not informing me about the lock-in offer as such an egregious mistake that they would have honoured the first rate. They were also the ones who informed me Bank of England meeting date is public information. Their advice and level of security seemed much more comprehensive as a free service. They offered a solution where Mortgage Scout could contact their Barclays Business Development Manager and explain how they missed out on the advice of locking in.
After taking this complaint to the Managing Director of Mortgage Scout, I found her to be patronising, telling me she knows exactly what I’m going through and comparing it to her own circumstances (Someone who has been director level for over 20 years should have a lot more security than new buyers). She promised they would try every effort and take my solution seriously, I chased them several times and got a one-sentence response advising nothing can be done and then minimal responses thereafter.
When I escalated my complaint to the Mortgage Advice Bureau (The authority behind Mortgage Scout), Sarah and Mortgage Scout had consistently mislabelled my complaint to be about the rates rising rather than the poor advice we had received.
I later saw direct emails to Barclays that showed MAB had claimed no fault & completely ignored my complaint and they implied Mortgage Scout had done the same. That’s the thing that makes my blood boil the most, both companies would rather cover their ass and admit no fault rather than risk admitting any fault/omitted information and providing any kind of chance of resolving this.
15 agosto 2024
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