‘Barclays’ mortgage blunders will cost us £20,000’

My partner and I are currently trying to port our £500,000 Barclays mortgage from a flat we have recently sold to a new one we are trying to buy. However, it is proving to be a complete disaster.

Barclays gives you 90 days to port the mortgage, starting from the date of redemption until the completion of the new property.

The way it works is that it charges an early repayment charge (for us this was £10,000), and then, once you've ported the mortgage successfully in the required time frame, it refunds this in full.

The sale of our original home completed on November 15, giving us until Monday 13 February to complete the purchase of our new one. We were already fairly advanced in our purchase by the time we sold, and we were confident we'd get it done in the time frame.

The issue is that we haven't completed in time due to Barclays' own errors. First there were IT issues and then they couldn't seem to get a surveyor out to us when we needed one for a valuation.

As a result we are left £20,000 worse off as a result of having to pay the £10,000 early repayment charge, and then losing our mortgage interest rate of 1.6pc.

Rates have gone up so much since we fixed that the best we can now get is 4pc, which adds hundreds a month onto our monthly payments.

We've been offered £250 compensation even though Barclays has admitted it is the one in the wrong.

We've just submitted a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service but it's likely to be months before our case even gets looked at, by which time it'll be too late.

MP, London

Having renovated your first flat yourselves, and caught the bug for breathing new life into “doer uppers”, you applied to Barclays for another, larger abode.

Unfortunately it was deemed unsuitable for a mortgage. This was because it had a severe damp problem.

However, instead of advising you that the first property was not eligible for a mortgage when it received the valuation, it asked you for additional damp reports, which caused a delay.

Then, as luck would have it, a property came up on a desirable street in your local area and you had an offer accepted on it.

On January 24 you amended your mortgage application to reflect that you were now intending to buy this new property.

On the same day a valuation was instructed by Barclays, but unfortunately this failed due to an IT issue, which led to a three week delay. It was resolved on Feb 13 with the valuation successfully instructed.

Barclays offered you your new mortgage on February 16 and it extended your porting deadline to March 26.

When it looked like you weren't going to meet this newly given deadline you wrote to the ombudsman and myself, and, in a stroke of luck for you, Barclays extended the porting condition again to April 15.

You were able to breathe a huge sigh of relief as your solicitors confirmed they should be able to get you over the line to complete by this date.

So, all going well, you will receive the £10,000 early redemption fee back and will also keep your favourable 1.6pc interest rate, meaning lower mortgage payments.

I've asked you to let me know how you get on. You know where I am if you need anything further.

A Barclays spokesman said: “We apologise that on this occasion our customer did not receive the high level of service they can expect from us.

“We can confirm that we have extended the time frame our customer can port their mortgage and have confirmed with their solicitor that this extension will be sufficient for completion.”