First Direct mortgage rates cut and cheaper fees

ginvzt

golffan wrote: »

I contacted First Direct today about a remortgage and was informed that i needed to go through it with one of their mortgage team and the soonest anybody can call me back is August the 18th !!??

We were more successful - we called last night (9pm) and got an appointment for August 15th. Now, it is nice that they tell you when they will call and that they will guarantee the current rate if you take the call, but it is just over 2 weeks away to jsut get to the stage that they tell you 'yes, we might give you the mortgage provided....' or '"sorry, you don't pass our acceptance criteria...".

We are thinking about two houses at the moment - the one we are currently renting, and the other one is a repossession. If we go for repossession, we can't go with First direct, as we are never going to meet the deadlines...

Temrael

Are they good at keeping their call back times?

I'm waiting for a call tonight. Tum tee tum.... :whistle:

Temrael

Didn't get a call for some reason, but called them and they apologised for having missed the appointment and said someone would call back. Got a call about 35 mins later.

Got a formal offer! Result!

Dead chuffed. :T

ginvzt

Temrael wrote: »

Didn't get a call for some reason, but called them and they apologised for having missed the appointment and said someone would call back. Got a call about 35 mins later.

Got a formal offer! Result!

Dead chuffed. :T

At least they called you back soon. We will be in the airport when our call back is scheduled - I have to go away with work, so OH will be taking me there early, we will have to find a quiet spot (in the airport?), and wait for the call. If they don't call, it will be a bit tricky!

Can you share what questions they asked you so that we can prepare better. We have all our income details, etc, but anything else that could be useful? I am away for the next 2 weeks with work, so I possibly might have some time in the evenings to go through our numbers and do a summary of the spending for the last 3-4 months...

Temrael

ginvzt wrote: »

Can you share what questions they asked you so that we can prepare better. We have all our income details, etc, but anything else that could be useful? I am away for the next 2 weeks with work, so I possibly might have some time in the evenings to go through our numbers and do a summary of the spending for the last 3-4 months...

Hiya,

Sebtomato did a pretty good post on that here... http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=34396927&postcount=20

Only things we had extra to what Seb had put was talking about the fact my wife was a director/shareholder in her small company, we just needed to reassure them that whilst she did have shares, she was just salaried as she always has been (doesnt get dividends, fluctuating income etc.). Confirming council tax and water rates figures, confirming house was of standard construction, confirming net wages as well as gross. Need to provide 3 months bank statements, (2 months printed from online and at least one months "real"), most recent P60s, last 3 months wage slips.

I wasn't expecting the formal offer but that was nice, we are lucky in that our LTV is about 28% though so that's gotta help.

HTH

ginvzt

Temrael wrote: »

Hiya,

Sebtomato did a pretty good post on that here... http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=34396927&postcount=20

Only things we had extra to what Seb had put was talking about the fact my wife was a director/shareholder in her small company, we just needed to reassure them that whilst she did have shares, she was just salaried as she always has been (doesnt get dividends, fluctuating income etc.). Confirming council tax and water rates figures, confirming house was of standard construction, confirming net wages as well as gross. Need to provide 3 months bank statements, (2 months printed from online and at least one months "real"), most recent P60s, last 3 months wage slips.

I wasn't expecting the formal offer but that was nice, we are lucky in that our LTV is about 28% though so that's gotta help.

HTH

Well, that is going to be a bit of an issue, as both banks we have accounts with (A&L & Nationwide) we have paperless option, so no paper statements... I have just switched our joint aco!!!! (Nationwide) to 'paper & online", so maybe we will get one sometime soon...

Temrael

You should be able to request a range of paper statements from your bank, even if they charge it should be more than absorbed in the money you save.

ginvzt

Temrael wrote: »

You should be able to request a range of paper statements from your bank, even if they charge it should be more than absorbed in the money you save.

Possibly, will have to enquire and send OH on a trip, as I am away for whole of August (apart from one weekend in the middle).

uzubairu

uzubairu wrote: »

Got another text from First Direct this afternoon, asking me to call them.

They wanted to know the balance on my credit card.
They also queried the payments to and from my personal account to my Egg Instant Access savings acount, as they thought they were payments to a credit card.

They want 3 months of statements from the bill payment account (as we pay money into it from our separate current accounts).
OH has just gone to fax them off now.

At least they are being thorough.
Fingers are still crossed.

After faxing the info they required (after a 25 minute call to me and OH) on Saturday, I wondered why I hadn't heard from them on Tuesday afternoon.
I phoned them at 15:30 on Tuesday and was told that they hadn't received the fax, and that they were still waiting for it.
I told them that I would be sending them again, but wanted a name to address the fax to and a reference number.

I decided to send them what they asked for (the 3 statements ) and a few more statements that they hadn't asked for, in the hope that it would speed up the decision-making process.
All the statements were from online accounts.

Got a phone call at 10:30 on Wednesday morning to say we had been approved, and we are now just waiting on them to do the valuation. :T
They would have to value our house at a giveaway price for us not to meet the LTV requirement.

• We made the initial call to FD on Saturday 10/07/10 (20 minute call).
• Phone interview with FD mortgage advisor (35 minute call) on Saturday 17/07/10. It was planned for the previous day, but the call was never received, so was re-scheduled for the following morning.
• Received forms on Monday 19/07/10
• Posted forms back on Tuesday 20/07/10
• Received text from FD confirming receipt of forms on Thursday 22/07/10
• FD mortgage advisor phoned OH at work (15 minute interview) on Thursday 22/07/10
• Received text from FD asking me to phone them (25 minute call) and faxed the requested documents on Saturday 24/07/10
• Phoned FD to see if they had received the fax and re-sent them on Tuesday 27/07/10
• Got a phone call from FD and approval (5 minutes) on Wednesday 28/07/10.

ginvzt

Just a quick question - while waiting for this FD call, do you think it would be useful and not harmful to get an AIP with ING direct (lifetime tracker at 2.15%+BOE, not offset and higher fees)? I think it is instant online.

It is just that I am starting to get worried what if we don't get what we are asking (up to 2.5x joint salary, depending which house we go for in the end). And, if we go for repossession house, we will need to move quickly and I am not sure the seller would wait around for us to get our act together.

We are waiting to put an offer on it (an offer in with the other house, but we are not prepared to up our offer). Our credit files are clean as far as we know, credit cards paid off at the end of the month, no other loans.