Woolwich - how long should it take?

ems11

I wonder if anyone could help me with a question I have?? I am in the process of selling my house (all seems to be going well), and am in constant communication with my buyer (which has undoubtedly helped things along), but the query I have is with my buyer's buyer.
I know strictly speaking its not my responsibility to deal with this, but we are trying to understand if we (we as in the rest of the chain - ie my buyer, and me) should be worried or not.

My buyer's buyer is a FTB, and has gone with the Woolwich. She had an agreement in principle, and had the valuation done nearly 4 weeks ago now. The buyer in question has gone via a financial advisor at the same estate agents that my buyer is selling with, so there may be a slight conflict of interest here (because they will get comission from the sale, but also arranging her buyers mortgage)

Both the FA, and the buyer are adamant that the mortgage has been agreed (they have looked this up on some "system" somewhere, and its shown as being agreed, after the valuation came back as ok), however the mortgage offer in writing is still not with her solicitor (or it wasnt as of yesterday). Both the buyer and the FA are adamant that there is no issue with the mortgage, and we know that the woolwich asked for her bank statements a couple of weeks ago now, (would that be to check her spending habits, or possibly the proof of her deposit?), but as of yet the mortgage offer still hasnt materialised.

Whilts its unlikely that the FA is giving incorrect information to my buyer, I am wondering how long it should take for this mortgage offer to materialise. Apparently the woolwich are doing a lot of tracker deals at the moment and are very busy (is this true?), but I would have thought that 4 weeks is more than long enough for the offer to be issued (albeit they have asked for additional info (bank statements) in the meantime).

Would there be any other reason they are holding off issuing the formal offer (month/year end perhaps?).

Is it unreasonable to expect this mortgage offer to have been issued by now? Both myself and my buyer had our mortgage offer within a couple of days of surveys being sent back to lender, but then again we are not FTB's.

Could anyone enlighten me on this, are we worrying unecessarily or should we be pushing (even) harder to find out whats going on?

From a legal perspective, we know that the buyer in question (bottom of the chain) is ready to exchange, awaiting mortg offer, as her solicitor has confirmed this, so things look ok from that end, but I am a little concerned re the length of time this is taking.

I have read other posts about Abbey taking 6 weeks to issue the offer, and I guess with her being a FTB it may take a little longer but still??:( ... Also, would the fact that they havent come back to her and refused to lend the money be a good sign (or am I clutching at straws with that one)?

any thoughts would be appreciated,

Thanks

mr_mortgage

ems11 wrote: »

My buyer's buyer is a FTB, and has gone with the Woolwich. She had an agreement in principle, and had the valuation done nearly 4 weeks ago now. The buyer in question has gone via a financial advisor at the same estate agents that my buyer is selling with, so there may be a slight conflict of interest here (because they will get comission from the sale, but also arranging her buyers mortgage)

...

Would there be any other reason they are holding off issuing the formal offer (month/year end perhaps?).

Is it unreasonable to expect this mortgage offer to have been issued by now? Both myself and my buyer had our mortgage offer within a couple of days of surveys being sent back to lender, but then again we are not FTB's.

Sorry I can't offer anything more specific - but the Woolwich/Barclays systems are not exactly state of the art. There is a lot of dependency on manual entry of data, re-keying of data and faxing information between different departments. Small grace that there are no punch cards involved!! But in essence, the quotation system, origination systems and servicing systems are completely seperate so that doesn't help with speed. To make things worse, Woolwich/Barclays also use Countrywide out in Dartford (perhaps not still, but they did until recently) as an outsourced supplier for servicing and arrears processing - but from memory, there is a degree of interaction during the origination stage as well. I think GE home finance are also in there with a shout on occasion. Either way, there's a lot of potential for unnecessary delays.

Combine all the above with the fact that the contact and processing centres are chronically understaffed, applications do take quite a while to process.

No news is not bad news, it's just no news. The only person who can move it along is the applicant, who can badger them daily until they do something.

4-6 weeks sounds about right for Woolwich mortgages, though ... the guys there were amazed when they were shown that Halifax had gone from applicaion to offer in less than a day in one case:-)

Cheers,
Mr M.

ems11

Mr M - thanks, that does actually make me feel (slightly) better.

I think I may be being a little impatient, as I got my mortgage offer within 1 week - from applying, the valuation being carried out and final written offer, (the valuation to written offer only took 2 days) so I thought 4 weeks was a long time, but I guess when you consider the above, it doesnt seem all that long.

I think the other issue is that the applicant is a FTB, and has never had a mortgage or gone through the buying process so isnt really pushing things as hard as myself and my buyer are.

I guess we will have to sit it out for another week or so, and in the meantime, try and apply the pressure to her to do something (or the FA).

Thanks for your reply.:beer:

noxon

I sympathise with your buyers buyer, in my experience Woolwich are a pain in the backside.

Right now I am in the middle of buying and selling, porting my existing Woolwich mortgage and adding more borrowing. I've done it directly not through a broker and after loads of delays from their side at every stage it took 5 days (Mon-Fri not over a weekend!) for me to have the hard copy of the mortgage offer in my hand from the day I was told by phone that it had been approved. And I only got it that fast because I rang them repeatedly to find out where it was.

Then the panel they instructed cocked up my survey but that's another story.

In fact, I also had to make a formal complaint when I first took out a mortgage with them, 2 years ago, as they were so hopeless and I ended up getting some money back. If my existing deal wasn't so good I would not have gone with them again.