14th Sep 2024 (7 weeks ago)
We enquired about viewing a property through Abbotts Beccles at the start of May 2024 but had to arrange both viewings directly with the vendor due to unavailability of Abbotts staff. Leanne was our agent.
After placing an offer, we were encouraged to use Countrywide in-house for our mortgage, as it would "speed up the process." Caitlin Johnston, our mortgage advisor, initially reassured us she’d handle everything, but things soon went downhill.
We were asked to meet in branch to sort paperwork and ID, etc which we promptly did. Countrywide is a partner company to which the main company is Connells Limited, who also hold Abbotts brand as a group company.
Countrywide, working with another broker (Dynamo - which is also a Connells brand!), incorrectly placed us on an adverse credit lending route with The Mortgage Lender (TML). Months went by with repeated requests for the same documents, causing unnecessary delays. By late July, Caitlin left the company suddenly, and no one informed us. Even when directly asked, Abbotts’ manager, Cheryl Swallow, insisted things were fine, leaving us in limbo. Arianne Maguire based in Norwich was given to us as a replacement broker but we found she'd left the company shortly after our referral too! Adam Doughty also based in Norwich, who was at the time the team leader refused to communicate with me, ignoring every single one of my emails and phone callback requests.
We have paid £798 to Countrywide on Tuesday 14th May 2024 for a lifetime membership which has proved to be useless. A payment of £281.60 was made to the Property Information Exchange on Wednesday 29th May 2024 which was an external payment to carry out checks - fine with this. We also paid £455 to The Mortgage Lender PLC on Tuesday 4th June 2024 through Connells to begin the application. Wasted money as they were unable to fulfil our basic request of finding a suitable mortgage. We didn't even get to offer stage. Why a sub-prime lender was offered for no good reason is a mystery?
Now into August 2024 and with nothing happening and pressure coming from Cheryl and Leanne at Abbotts, we had no other choice but to take advice elsewhere. We found a lovely independent whole market broker who took instruction and had an offer in place in 13 days from start to finish. Luckily our vendor was very obliging and stayed by our side, hoping we'd get things sorted quickly. We had no support here from Cheryl or Leanne.
We recieved the offer from Coventry Building Society. Someone who I'd refer to as a "mainstream lender". Ironically, Coventry was available through Countrywide, but we were sent to a less favorable lender called The Mortgage Lender though an intermediary Dynamo, owned by Connells. To many cooks in the kitchen!
Having now finally exchanged on 30th August 2024, the last bits of paperwork were completed and we found ourselves completing (ironically) on Friday 13th September!. Throughout the whole process we found Abbotts staff to repeatedly lie or avoid giving answers that they didn't want to give. Cheryl would talk over you, butt in and always try to assume her passive aggressive behaviour by always reminding us that she'd been "in the business for 10 years". Other staff would not pass information over and we'd find ourselves having the same conversation again which then confused things.
I'm now going through the proces to pursue refunds for services and costs we incurred though no fault of our own. This is ongoing. Nobody follows up callbacks and emails go un-answered.
So in summary to my long explanation I'd NOT recommend Abbotts or Countrywide. My suggestion would be if engaging with Abbotts that you DO NOT use any cross sold services or products.
All in all the process has left a bitter taste with us and has ruined the journey in owning our first home.... Read more