Alliance and Leicester and Santander the wait goes on.... and on.....

[Deleted User]

This is very odd as it goes against everything A&L are saying themselves. We applied yesterday (porting mortgage over plus taking out a new product) and were advised we would expect a decision within 3 days (by tomorrow). Even for new mortgages they are advertising 2 weeks.

A&L mortgages aren't yet linked to Santander, so I'm not sure that the merger really is the sticking point in some cases.

VIGILANT22

What has been posted about the A&L delays is 100% accurate.

clairet707

It doesnt seem to affect everyone though who applies to Abbey / A&L / Santander etc though...

We applied for our Abbey mortgage on friday 12th feb, got approved (subject to survey) on monday 15th Feb and the survey was done on wednesday 17th feb... So full approval within a week!

Leon_W

Generally all OK if computer say "yes" and there is no "input" from Santander staff but computer very often say "no !" with a capital N. If you have the misfortune to be self employed there is also a 3rd reserve category of rejection called FO ! and a red light flash on top of computer with audible warning device.

This will trigger Team Santander robots to run around like headless chickens demanding to know every conceivable thing about you down to your inside leg measurement and treat you like you are a playground drug dealer who should be locked up with Gary Glitter just incase you were a !!!!!phile aswell . They call this Treating Customers Fairly.

Regards

VIGILANT22

We are discussing A&L here, who most certainly do have a backlog of work. Earlier in the recession they made redundancies within the mortgage processing units because lending had fallen. Criteria has loosened up somewhat from 12 months ago, they have some competitive rates on offer so volume of business has increased but they have a reduced amount of processors to deal with applications.
All applications used to be dealt with in Belfast the overflow has now been fielded out to Wigan where they are working late and weekends.
The staff in Wigan are not up to speed with proccess's and the underwriters are well....I don't have a word to describe them.

Furthermore not all applications are the same, some are more complex than others and will require reviewing by a Senior Underwriter...However the system they run, means everytime they deal with something and it has to be passed to a n other...it is put in a electronic Q and just has to be wait until it is dealt with....

The merger with Santander is causing some confusion, however they a 2 seperate brands, therefore you cannot compare Abbey with A&L

JA1000

clairet707 wrote: »

It doesnt seem to affect everyone though who applies to Abbey / A&L / Santander etc though...

We applied for our Abbey mortgage on friday 12th feb, got approved (subject to survey) on monday 15th Feb and the survey was done on wednesday 17th feb... So full approval within a week!

Did you go direct or via a broker?

peachespeaches

buttons1987 wrote: »

hey, yeah my OH and i got accepted in principle and then confirmed by abbey/santander. Then waited and waited and waited, and after calling our broker every other day to be told they were still waiting but that it was going threw, well 6 weeks later we were turned down. Still waiting on an explanation 8 months down the line. It also made a big bent on our credit rating.

They did the same thing to someone else on here, but santander waited til the day she was due to exchange contracts to decline her mortgage application.
they are lovely like that.

Some advice- stop wasting your time with santander, they'll mess you arond and take your money then fall back on T's&C's.

Good luck x

A very similar thing happend to us with the Co-op bank. They made a mess of the application, the mortgage was delayed, we were agreed to in principle and EVEN HAD A VALUATION. Our application took so long it had to be re-keyed but we were told this wasnt a problem. On re-keying the application (putting it through again) they turned us down immediately. We wrote to complain and copied it to the ombudsman. We got a refund of our valuation fee, a removal of some of the credit searches (they did 6!!) and some compensation for abortive legal fees. I wouldnt touch co-op with a barge pole now.

We applied to mansfield building society with the help of a lady called Liz from MB simply mortgages, and it all went through extremely smoothly, no problems, but the interest rate wasnt as low as the co-op one originally.

JA1000

Nationwide did this to me all yes yes yes pay the fee process the app and NO. I am £99 lighter as a result !!

VIGILANT22

It could be worse..nationwide now appoint valuation before underwriting...if property values ok and then you fail underwriting...you've waived goodbye to a val fee......

JA1000

The valuation fee was going to be free, I wouldn't have minded at the moment I am applying fairly blind on valuation.