Validity of mortgage offer - how many months?

Sam_84

Our current fixed-rate mortgage deal ends late Nov so I'm starting to look around for a new deal to take effect as soon as possible after the current deal ends. We'll probably go for another 5 year fix as we should be able to get rid of our mortgage then.

We're with Nationwide and saw that they'd just cut their fixed rates so I went in to ask if I could arrange a new deal now and they said no. If I wanted to avoid an early repayment fee, I'd have to wait until late Aug (i.e. 3 months before).

I'm pretty sure that when we got our offer from Nationwide in 2003, that we had 6 months to complete on the remortgage (we were moving to them from another lender).

I've looked on the Nationwide website to try to confirm that offers are only valid for 3 months but without success.

Can anyone confirm if it is 3 months now? Is it different for new customers?

As you can tell, I haven't really followed the mortgage market for the past few years so perhaps the 'market standard' has changed. Do any of the main lenders give offers that are valid for 6 months anymore? I'm getting a bit twitchy about getting the remortgage sorted out in good time especially with the volatility of medium-term interest rates.

Thanks in advance for the help

Sam

happybroker

nationwides mortgage offers are currently valid for 6 months

leepez

I spoke to HSBC yesterday, my fixed rate with the Halifax ends 1/1/09 they said they could arrange a re-mortgage for me now and keep it until the 1/1/09.

Perhaps it's new customers only?

foreversummer

I'm an existing customer of HSBC with both personal and business accounts.

I asked in June if I could discuss remortgaging with them as my deal ends in October and they said they could not talk to me until one month before! I double checked in my local branch and they said that this was the case.

Are we seeing an easing of the credit conditions I wonder?

Foreversummer

kaysmith87

Nationwide only allow you to have a mortgage review meeting 3 months before the expiry date. I am unsure as to weather the actual offer is issued in the same way as a first mortgage. I know when i worked there that on the very rare occasion they did this slightly before the 3 months but they are quite strict on it.

Sam_84

Thanks for the help.

I have to say that I'm not terribly impressed by Nationwide on this point. It looks to me like it's (yet) another case of treating existing customers less fairly than new customers.

As a new customer, I could have my meeting with Nationwide and, assuming all went OK, have an offer in my hand in the next (say) 4-6 weeks. I'd then have a further 6 months before it expired. I could lock in to one of the current deals now.

As an existing customer, they don't even want to talk to me for another 6 weeks and, with the very fast moving mortgage market, no-one knows what the rates on offer then will be.

OK. Rant over. No point in re-hashing old arguments again. I guess that it's time to have a look around and see who else has interesting mortgage offers.

Sam

happybroker

find out what deals you can get elsewhere and then go back to Nationwide telling them that you will move your mortgage away from them if they can't look into this now. I'd be amazed if they couldn't do something, speak to somebody senior with a proffessional qualification preferably.