Proof of tenancy for mortgage proving difficult

I_Claudius

Loooong Post alert; apologies!!

I'm having a bit of a headache with my mortgage application and was wondering if there was anything I could do about it

I've had an offer accepted on a property in North London, surevy came through fine and searches have been returned; everything seemingly moving forward fine

I'm a FTB getting a mortgage of 190,000 against a £380,000 property (i'm very very lucky in having a substantial deposit)

have met my mortgage broker face to face once and have provided him all the neccassary documentation, including several proofs of address (bankstatements / utility bills / CTax reciepts etc) going back over 3 years

everything was going fine seemingly; altho i'm not ecstatic about my deal (5.5% fixed for 2 years,) according to my broker this was the best deal he could get me - credit history not great (2 defaults, 1 in the process of being resolved) and 5 x my salary of £38K - my wife is going to be contributing 50% so am totally confident I can cope with the payments

anyway............ Have been talking to my broker regarding progress of my application (AIP in place, Key facts have arrived) and he said everything is in place and i'll get my offer the minute my letting agents for my past 3 rentals get back to the mortgage provider (Platform).

This was a 3 weeks ago, I've spoken to my old letting agents to try and hurry them up and they've told me that the form they got was very unusual because it asked for a month by month rent statement for the entire time i was living at 2 of their properties. He said that he gets forms from mortgage providers all the time that simply ask him to confirm that the applicant lived at that address for whatever term and occasionally ask for the rental rate and he can sort those out himself quickly but that this was something out of the ordinary.

He's had to pass it over to their finance dept and (understandably) this isn't their number one priority in life and they have said they will 'eventually' get back to him.

To make matters worse the other letting agent for the my previous flat only found the property for me and I paid direct to the landlord who has sold the flat and moved to France, so finding him and getting a month by month statement from him is looking super tricky.

Not sure what to do now; Vendor is getting twitchy as I sold myself as a FTB who could move quickly, the house is empty and he wants to complete asap

I (of course!) just want to get my mortgage offer asap also, and was wondering if my mortgage provider are being unusually stringent in checking up on me this closely; I've got ample proofs of address from all properties, was on the electoral role at all of them etc etc. I'm very much a novice at this and am not that sure whether this is normal..........

Voyager2002

No, this is not normal.

I have twice had the experience of applying for a mortgage at a time when I was a tenant, and in neither case did my landlord or agent have to provide any documentation. So my initial reaction to your story is, find another lender, but if you have had credit problems this might be difficult.

Another thought: there is a database that landlords and letting agents use to 'vet' prospective tenants, and this holds details of many people who have been tenants and records whether or not they paid their rent. Since your letting agent seems friendly, perhaps you could ask him whether it would hold enough data to satisfy your mortgage lender -- if so, that could be a simple solution.

I_Claudius

Voyager2002 wrote:

No, this is not normal.

I have twice had the experience of applying for a mortgage at a time when I was a tenant, and in neither case did my landlord or agent have to provide any documentation. So my initial reaction to your story is, find another lender, but if you have had credit problems this might be difficult.

Another thought: there is a database that landlords and letting agents use to 'vet' prospective tenants, and this holds details of many people who have been tenants and records whether or not they paid their rent. Since your letting agent seems friendly, perhaps you could ask him whether it would hold enough data to satisfy your mortgage lender -- if so, that could be a simple solution.

thanks for that, appreciate the advice:beer:

i have considered going through another lender, altho my credit isn't great i have no ccj's and my LTV seems pretty good to me (50/50) and so I presume it wouldn't be impossible for me to get a comparable offer from someone else

my problem is timing, i think it would take me a while to get my application filed and approved and a new survey done; also not sure how much (if any) trouble / delays it would cause with my solicitor(??)

i'm going to visit my letting agent tomorrow and see if theres anything he can do to help but still not sure about my other landlord who emigrated

If it would help I could even provide my bank statements for the past 4 years showing rent payments leaving every month on time(!!) but have been told thats not what they're after / need

it does seem strange that my mortgage co are being so inflexible, for instance what happens if your previous landlord dies? i'm guessing getting a month by month statement of rental payments would be quite tricky in that situation....................

meercatpebbles

I actually had a difficult experience with Platform a little while ago ..... Same as you I got an AIP and everything seemed to be going along swimmingly at first...... then it just sort of halted and Platform started asking my broker for all kinds of stuff....which I was able to supply...ie bank statements....mortgage statements ...proof of residency etc etc etc.....I was going down the self certification route as like you I had a substantial deposit and because my accounts were not that great for previous years....although they were not that bad I thought it would be simpler to go self cert just to speed the process up as like you I had told my vendor that I could move quickly. Time moved on .... vendor got twitchy and then !!!!ed off....I was calling my broker on a twice daily basis....eventually Platform came back and said they wanted a letter from my accountant.....which I supplied with no problem.....still time went on.....I might point out also that I have a glowing credit report with no defaults or missed payments or ccjs whatsoever..... After much stress and a lot of time my vendors pulled out of the deal (understandibly) and I was left with a lot of bills .....valuation...conveyancing...solicitors ...etc etc. About two weeks after the vendor pulled the plug Platform got back to my broker and said they could see I could go full cert (is that the right terminology) and as such wanted me to go full cert..... Eh ? Of course it was too late....

I did lose that property although it is still for sale....the vendor now refuses to deal with me and I guess I don't look that good to the estate agents either....

Good news is though I completed a different deal just yestrerday and that went through just fine !!!!

Hope you get a happy resolution to yours.....