Bad Mortgage Advice – Accept Compensation Offer or Escalate?

I’ve recently received some bad mortgage advice from Halifax and hoping I could ask advice from any experts where on where I stand with the situation. 

I’m in the middle of purchasing a new build property to move into. I’ve reached the final stages of a mortgage application with Halifax, having received a mortgage offer, and a successful valuation of the property, though have run into some issues with the product selection at the end of the process.

I’ve been working with one of Halifax’s internal mortgage advisors. In the first meeting back in March we discussed the product range at the time and narrowed it down to several options that I could choose from. All of these fell under the ‘home mover’ range as I already own another property. The rates started at 3.1% going up to 3.5% depending on product fee, all based on an 85% LTV. The issue then was that all of those products expired on 31st August 2014 and my property is not due to complete until 26th September 2014. So I was advised by Halifax that I would have to select from the ‘next’ range of home mover mortgages once they become available with expiry dates after the September completion. The advisor promised to progress the application to final stage and contact me when the new range is released to complete the application. I was happy with this assuming rates were likely to go up by around 0.5% max knowing that this would still be affordable.

Having received no further contact from them until now I decided to call them myself the other day. It turns out the new range is now available, at 3.5% and 3.9% just as I had expected. However the mortgage advisor now tells me that because it is a new build I can’t select from the standard mortgage range. I have to choose the specific new build mortgage with a rate of 4.4%!… To make things worse this rate has actually increased since March as well, back then I could have had the mortgage for 4.19% (expiry is Jan15).

I launched a complaint with Halifax and they have made an offer of compensation, but I’m unsure whether I should take it or push things further for a better offer.

The offer is for me to take the 4.4% mortgage, and they will refund me cash upfront to cover the difference in monthly payment between the 4.19% and 4.4%. Plus £300 compensation.

Based on the fact that my original quotations were in the 3% range should I be pushing back on this and going for a larger cash refund? If I do, do I have a leg to stand on?

Their argument is that due to the expiry date on the 3.1%-3.5% I would have never been eligible for those anyway. My argument is that they shouldn’t have based my original quotation on those rates (bad mortgage advice) as it gave me unrealistic expectations of the monthly cost of the mortgage.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

James

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