Mortgage porting - lender not repaying fee

[Lemonwords]

We completed on our house and then there was a delay buying our new property. Woolwich said that was fine and we'd have to pay an exit fee for our mortgage but we would then get this fee back it if we ported the mortgage and completed within 6 months. This all happened.

We now have a mortgage in two parts; our old mortgage and the new top up: different interest rates. Woolwich are now saying we can't have our fee back (it's thousands!) because we kept the same interest rate on the old part of the mortgage.

It makes no sense. There is nothing about this on our paperwork and we did the new mortgage in branch and this was not mentioned. We could have got a slightly better deal not porting the old mortgage but with the early repayment fee taken into account it worked out slightly better. We could have also looked into other banks but stuck with Woolwich because of the exit fee being so much.

Now we have the worse interest rate and no fee back! The call centre is a nightmare can't get any sense of our anyone. Is it possible to escalate this beyond a call centre to an external body?? Am furious.

Put everything in writing in a letter stating when, where and who you spoke to and what you were told. Get proof of posting when you send the letter. Don't waste your time speaking to different people in the call centre.

I thought this was what happened when you increased your mortgage on porting ie new part on current rate
The rate payable on each part should have been stated on the Offer of loan
If not you should complain in writing

Stop calling them. Write a letter of complaint saying you have not been treated fairly and explaining clearly what you want. If they come back with anything other than giving you the money, take it to the Financial Ombudsman service.

That sounds wrong. The old mortgage is ported at that rate (thus repayment fee refunded within time limit). Top up part at new rate which may or may not be lower/higher. Its daft that you would port at a what woukd amount to a loss. It sounds as if you did your homework. Definitely complain in writing setting out the cost of both scenarios.

In a similar situation ourselves, and 3 weeks post completion we don't have the refunded EPC yet although they said wait a month. I'm fully expecting there to be a lot of games to he played in getting this back. It's not an insignificant sum of money too, best part of 20 large.

The new part of the mortgage is 2.9% the old is 4.29% the only reason we ported it was to save paying the exit fee. Otherwise we would just have it all at 2.9%

I gave the call centre one more go today and he said he's sure they'll give it us back after he first mortgage payment. I pointed it we have a letter saying they won't. Going to draft a letter complaining tomorrow.

It's am such a pain but so much money.

How you getting on with this OP? We've now had our mortgage a month and guess what no EPC repayment yet so the fun is about to begin for us.

If you have the old part of the mortgage on the old rate that is exactly why you should have the fee refunded. Sounds like someone you spoke to doesn't know what they are talking about.
Can you speak to your original mortgage adviser and get them to sort it out?