The Mortgage Works (UK) Plc · DRN-6239368

The complaint Ms F complains about errors made by The Mortgage Works (UK) Plc in administering her buy to let mortgage. She asks for additional compensation. What happened Ms F had a buy to let mortgage with TMW. She raised complaints in 2025 that: • TMW applied three product arrangement fees instead of two when she took out new products in 2023. The additional arrangement fee was over £6,000. • When she applied to extend the term of her mortgage, TMW made errors with the stated value of her property. TMW corrected the errors. It refunded the additional arrangement fee and related interest. It offered £250 compensation. Ms F says this isn’t enough, given the amount of the fee wrongly applied to her account, the pattern of errors and that she had to point the errors out to TMW. Our investigator said TMW had done enough to put matters right. Our investigator said we can’t look into Ms F’s third complaint (about problems taking out interest rate products for her two sub accounts in 2023). That’s because she didn’t bring it to us within six months of TMW issuing its final response. This meant it was brought to us outside our time limits. Ms F said she understood this. She said she wanted to bring this to our attention to illustrate the pattern of errors by TMW. Ms F says TMW’s offer of £250 isn’t enough. In summary, she says TMW made a series of errors, and she would still be out of pocket if she hadn’t noticed them. She lost trust in TMW and is glad to have remortgaged elsewhere. Ms F said £500 is more realistic. What I’ve decided – and why I’ve considered all the available evidence and arguments to decide what’s fair and reasonable in the circumstances of this complaint. TMW accepts it made errors. It applied an additional arrangement fee when Ms F took out new products for her two sub-accounts in 2023. Ms F raised concerns about the additional arrangement fee on 24 July 2025. TMW corrected the error on 31 July 2025. It refunded the additional fee and related interest, and recalculated Ms F’s payments. The term of Ms F’s mortgage was due to expire in early 2026. She applied to TMW in mid- 2025 to extend the term. TMW said this would require a valuation of the property and an affordability assessment. The property was valued at £780,000. However, an incorrect amount was initially showing on-line. This was corrected promptly, within about a week of Ms F raising her concerns.

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Based on the available evidence, I can’t see that this had any impact on Ms F’s application to extend the term. TMW said a new mortgage for the same amount was unaffordable. It said Ms F would need to reduce the amount she wanted to borrow. It initially said she needed to reduce the loan by about £47,000. It recalculated this after the refunds to the account on 31 July 2025. It said Ms F needed to reduce the balance by about £41,000. Ms F decided to remortgage with another lender. I don’t think matters would have been different if TMW had said at the outset that Ms F needed to reduce the balance by £41,000. In her correspondence with TMW’s complaints team, Ms F asked about two arrangement fees applied in late 2022. TMW said this related to a tracker product taken out by Ms F in November 2022 and a fixed rate product taken out in December 2022. TMW said it had called Ms F to confirm she wanted to take out the second product so soon after taking out the tracker product, and Ms F confirmed that she did. I can understand that Ms F wanted to check these fees were correctly applied to her account. It’s not clear if Ms F is happy with the explanation or if she remains concerned about this issue. For completeness, I don’t think TMW made an error when it applied these fees. TMW offered compensation of £250 for the inconvenience and upset its errors caused. Ms F says this isn’t enough, given the amount of the additional arrangement fee applied in error and that there were several other errors. She said TMW should employ the right people to ensure errors like these don’t happen. This service is not a regulator. We don’t fine or punish businesses. Our role is to resolve complaints quickly and informally. When deciding what compensation is fair and reasonable in the circumstances, we consider what impact the error had on the customer. TMW refunded the additional arrangement fee and related interest, and adjusted Ms F’s account on 31 July 2025. It asked her to provide evidence if this had caused her other financial loss – which I can’t see that Ms F provided. The total amount refunded was about £7,000 and I agree this is a significant amount of money. I think it was right that TMW took steps to ensure Ms F didn’t have any financial loss, and that it did so promptly. Ms F hasn’t provided evidence she has any outstanding financial loss as a result of TMW’s error. The evidence doesn’t suggest that Ms F was caused loss by any other error by TMW. When it made errors, TMW put them right promptly when it was made aware of them. Taking all this into account, I think the £250 offered by TMW is fair and reasonable in the circumstances. My final decision My decision is that The Mortgage Works Plc should pay £250 to Ms F, as it offered to do. It can deduct any amounts it has already paid. Under the rules of the Financial Ombudsman Service, I’m required to ask Ms F to accept or reject my decision before 17 April 2026. Ruth Stevenson Ombudsman

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