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Name: L Watson

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Awful experience - do not use!

My partner & I were looking to purchase our first home and our broker suggested Atom banks digital mortgages. He said they were a new bank that would lend us the amount we needed for the first house of our dreams, he also said that as they were an 'only digital' bank they would be the quickest option as our seller was looking for a quick sale. We were obviously very excited when they offered us a mortgage in principle and we began to plan for our new home once they accepted our paperwork and put the property forward for valuation. Other lenders check and approve the borrower before sending the property to be valued (i.e they check that they will lend to the person before checking that they will lend on the property) so us & our broker assumed that Atom had approved of us and just needed to check on the property. This is not the case with Atom. The property was valued and came back fine, we were then told to wait 48 hours for our official mortgage offer. Atom has appointed a solicitor to us and we were told to pay £300 for the search fees - again, we assumed that we were going to be accepted as the property has been sent for valuation and all had been fine so far. 4 days later, and after paying £300 for the solicitor searches that atom had appointed to us and a further £350 valuation fee, Atom declined our mortgage. Our broker advised us that most lenders do not unnceccesarily charge for valuation fees if they do not plan to lend to the borrower, so he requested a refund of the valuation fees. Atom declined this request and refused to refund our valuation fee. So now, not only are we £650 down, we are totally disheartened because of this awful experience of trying to purchase our first property. We ended up losing the house that we loved because of this. DO NOT USE THIS BANK! Reviewed on: 10th April 2017

Reply from Hello L Watson Thanks for taking the time to leave a review, we really appreciate all feedback, especially if it helps us to make improvements. As our mortgages are still new, it’s even more important that we listen to our customers and keep making things better where we can. It’s very disappointing for us to hear you didn’t have a good experience and we’d like to ensure that we deal with this properly for you. Our team are investigating the specific details of your application and will be in touch with you really soon. Speak to you soon, Atom bank Response date: 21st April 2017