Mortgage application - how long until approval?

Jumbletron

We are 1st time buyers and have applied for a mortgage with HSBC (one of their new 90% LTV deals). Applied a week ago and our application was referred to the underwriters for them to assess before approval (though the advisor in the bank said she couldn't imagine it wouldn't be approved).

Does anybody know how long we might have to wait before it is approved - does anyone have experience with HSBC directly?

I'm anxious that it goes through asap as our upper chain is complete and I'm waiting for approval before I send £250 off to our solicitors to kick off that process...

Many thanks

_Andy_

HSBC are usually pretty lame. Could be up to two weeks. Bst person to ask would be the advisor in the branch though obviously.

devon_guy

I'd be chasing up now it's been with them for a week.

sockpuppet

I work for a mortgage broker and we have dealt with HSBC before. It can be a good couple of weeks as they have to wait for the valuation to be done on the property and for this to be assessed by the underwriter before they can approve the mortgage, plus they would need any other items they may have requested; such as ID, payslips etc which the underwriter would also need to see.
A lot of the lenders are really snowed under at the moment with staff cutbacks etc and can be somewhat behind on their turnaround times - keep chasing the advisor in the branch!

Margin_Walker

The valuation won't hold up the actual approval of the mortgage as these are dealt with by the mortgage service centre rather than the underwriters. The mortgage is approved(hopefully) and an offer sent out subject to a satisfactory valuation. I think they aim to approve within 10 working days although i'm not 100% on that.