My next move after awful remortgage

[Satsuma]

A while ago I wrote about my remortgage woes. The case finally completed (whole other story) and my detailed/point by point complaint went in.
(This is with the Panel firm who allocated the end conveyancer to me. I cannot complain to the end conveyancer as they are instructed by/for the lender not me. The lender is completely disinterested and refers me/correspondence directly to the panel. So…)

I am now at the final stage of senior director review, and they have sent me a lengthy fobbing off letter, with a cheque attached for a sum of money that covers part of the actual costs I incurred. I am still cash-down on a separate element but not outrageously so. The rest is just time, inconvenience and bloody annoyance.

They seem to be deliberately ignoring/outright contradicting me several elements of my complaint despite the facts which are there for anyone to see. Given their reputation I am not surprised in the least, they have no interest in doing the right thing whatsoever. Am I realistically going to be able to turn their oil tanker of awfulness?

I am weighing up my options:
1. Bird in the hand, cash the cheque and just forget the whole sorry affair (after which I will update/name and shame on the other thread)
2. Ask for deadlock letter and go to legal ombudsman to really go into detail on the contradicted points (if I even can - LO gave me very helpful advice which indicates I may not even be able to use their services for this specific transaction/circumstance due to the arm’s length relationships all over the place)
3. Some other option I have not considered? (Although I’m not sure I have the energy for small claims, quite frankly…)


Lemon thoughts?
TIA
Sats

[bungeejumper]

Commiserations, Sats, it sounds awful.

Can't honestly say more than that your response needs to reflect your own personal situation. There have been times when my wife and I have decided to lick our wounds and move on, and other times when we've felt it was worth getting serious with a complaint. (Such as when HMRC stole four months of our lives chasing an alleged attempt at tax fraud that even they confessed was entirely due to their own error. We got £350, which was the maximum possible award, but no apology.)

One thing that we've learned (I'm speaking strictly personally here ), is that we need to exclude any thought of acting vigilante-style on behalf of others, because although some people are that brave (and good for them!), we haven't got enough spare energy to be able to do it effectively. I have huge admiration for those who mount internet campaigns, but that's not us.

Sit on it for another week or two, and see how you feel?

BJ

[Satsuma]

Sorry BJ, managed to totally miss some recent reply notifications

Commiserations, Sats, it sounds awful.
<snip>
Can't honestly say more than that your response needs to reflect your own personal situation....Sit on it for another week or two, and see how you feel?

BJ

Due to various workload/illness/etc, that is actually what's happened, more or less. I have had no follow up from the sender.
I still feel aggrieved that they are wilfully misunderstanding/mis-describing what actually happened, and that their version of events will be what goes down as the record.

And - perhaps more so - that they will not change a damn thing and more customers will unwittingly fall into the bear pit. But that then reflects on your advice regarding vigilantism. I can always do TrustPilot reviews etc I guess.

I vaguely recall some turn of phrase that CK (most likely) has advised in the past, where you basically say "ok, I'll accept this but with extreme grudge and it's basically because there's naff-all else I can do to make you be professional". (It's like "accepted with extreme prejudice", but that phrase doesn't actually mean what it sounds like <especially not the "terminate with..."variant!>).

I think basically I want to have the last word. Maybe I just need to grow up!

Sats

[Satsuma]

Oh, in one more slightly amusing/exasperating turn of events, the lender is getting more ridiculous too.

My mortgage allows me to overpay by 10% of the balance each year, penalty free.
I made an overpayment and got a strange message back with confirmation of a quite different (much smaller) maximum annual overpayment allowance for 2018.

I queried this twice, and on receipt of their second, pretty snotty, 'calculation', I have come to see that they are unable to distinguish between hundreds of pounds and thousands of pounds - where I have made a £900 overpayment, they have deducted £9000 in their message to me.

(Sadly my actual mortgage account balance does not reflect the same maths or I'd be done and dusted by Christmas!)

[bungeejumper]

I think basically I want to have the last word. Maybe I just need to grow up!

Aww, don't do that. Besides, revenge is a basic human instinct

The more I see of the financial world, the more worried I get. I was recently transferring some pension plans out to a SIPP, and I discovered that one of my pension providers had allocated my policy to a complete stranger's National Insurance number, more than twenty years ago. It wasn't even close to my own NI number - somebody must have picked up my documents after a long lunch and entered the info from another part of their desk, and......

Fortunately I got that one sorted out after a couple of weeks. But the HMRC error was much worse. Basically, a tax inspector had stapled together two pages of info from my wife, and had then accused her of concealing the information on the two inside pages of the "sandwich"! Then they launched a full-scale fraud investigation on the basis of that.

We had three home visits from two inspectors (a torture-style "hard man/soft man" team) who intimidated, bullied and lied for several months. I had to watch my wife in tears over the breakfast table for much of this time. And at the end of it they said they'd discovered their error, but they absolutely refused to apologise. And they still do. Ten years later, I still wish personal harm to that tax inspector. But we had to move on, for our own sanity's sake.

BJ