Letters to Jessica: Santander's mistake forced us to change lender You wrote to me four months after your house purchase had been agreed and you had called Santander's "moving home" line requesting the transfer of your present mortgage to a new property for the remaining term. You have had a string of mortgages with Santander and its predecessors over the years. On this occasion, though, it became clear that things were not right. An assortment of Santander staff had offered mortgages for differing amounts with various repayment options. With nothing in the bag, though, you were pointed in the direction of a mortgage adviser, who failed to turn up to the appointment. £40 was given because of this. When a meeting did take place you were told that, owing to new bank policy, you could not continue your present interest-only contract. You accepted this and, having ascertained your details, income and requirements, the person you were speaking to confirmed that a £90,000 repayment mortgage was achievable. However, as the employee fed lower and lower mortgage amounts into the computer, it steadfastly said "no" to the proposal. This was attributed to a "systems error." You were then told the matter would be passed to the underwriters. Time and again you were promised a final decision until it became clear that the answer from the humans was likely to be as negative as those coming from the computer. The day after I contacted Santander, the bank discovered that your mortgage application form indicated, totally incorrectly, that there was a £745-a-month maintenance charge against you. You explained that you are not divorced and all your children were accounted for. You have never had any maintenance charge against you. The mysterious order does not appear on your credit report with the credit reference agencies or feature on your bank statements. Even now the bank doesn't appear to know how the erroneous information found its way onto your file. Santander now agreed to offer a mortgage. By then, utterly exasperated, you had gone with a different provider. It took over a month from my first contact with the bank to sort this out for you. Santander now accepts it gave poor service and that it should have tried harder to retain your business. It said it was very disappointing that, despite promises that this would be investigated further, it had not been. Bafflingly, your complaint correspondence seems to have vanished into thin air. In view of the circumstances, Santander now agreed to waive the £5,919 early repayment charge as a gesture of goodwill. After that you wrote to me that you would like Santander to also pay the further costs associated with obtaining an alternative mortgage and for something to reflect the personal stress and health issues provoked. This came as something of a surprise given your original letter in which you had said waiving the repayment fee would satisfy you. You said you were now wanting more having become more despondent. I did try to persuade Santander to comply with this but it insists that it has compensated you more than enough. You are now happily settled in your new property in Leicestershire.