Waiting for Mortgage Offer

tristinh

Hi all,

We had an offer accepted on a property on 15th February and let our independent mortgage advisor know the same day and gave her all the details. She re-did her search and reccommended the Abbey (Santander) as the best deal. We gave the nod based on the the illustration she showed us on 16th of Feb and physically gave her all the ID, pay slips, bank statements etc the same day.

Now we are nearly 4 weeks down the line and we haven't had the valuation done, let alone recieved the offer. Every time I call her (once a week) she says it is with the underwriters and that they are quite quick at the Abbey - and it is apprently normal for them to underwrite it THEN do the valuation.

Our solictor has had all the searches back and is just waiting on the mortgage offer. We have had a private survey done and quotes for any work highlighted in these 4 weeks.

We already had an in principle agreement to the mortgage with another lender, but byt the time we found somewhere the Abbey had a better deal.

Does this seem a normal length of time?

Grateful for any advice!! )

motherofstudents

Seems a long time to me. I've never had a mortgage through Santander/Abbey but previous mortgages with Woolwich, Nationwide, Natwest did not take that long. My son just bought a house through the Halifax and they did everything over the phone, got their mortgage offer on the Friday, had the valuation done the following Tuesday. They were FTB's and it couldn't have gone more smoothly so I do think your delay is rather exessive. Can you get estate agent and or solicitor to put some pressure on them. I don't think they should be too much longer.

sonastin

I received my mortgage offer from Abbey on Friday, which is maybe 10 days after the application was submitted. The underwriting of me and my payslips did take place before the valuation but I think the surveyor was already instructed, its just that the survey hadn't taken place. However its now Tuesday and my solicitor hasn't received his copy so he can't act on it yet.

The trouble with that is when we submitted the application my mortgage advisor informed them of the issues with the property (no building regs on garage extension or loft conversion) but the offer has been issued with conditions, including that my solicitor must obtain copies of the building regs certs for the loft conversion. So my solicitor needs to write to them to find out what they'll do if the loft doesn't have building regs but he can't until he gets the offer. So really, I'm no closer than you - it just seems like it because I've got a piece of paper on my desk!

kingstreet

There is no "normal" these days.

What you expect to take ten days ends up taking a month and a case you think will take a while sails through.

You could be cheeky and nip in to your adviser's office and ask them to show you what MATS (the online progress system) says about your case and ask the adviser to explain it to you.

I've never had anyone ask me that, but I'd show them if they did. I'd also show them on their home computer, if I was on a home visit.

danielley

I'm awaiting an offer from Skipton and I thought i'd been waiting a long time! My application was received on 4th March, but some of the paperwork was outstanding and only got to them on 9th/10th March.

Skipton called me on 9th March to take payment of Arrangement and Survey Fee so I assumed it was all good to go, but apparently its still with the underwriters! They take survey fee in advance so that once all is sorted paperwork side, the survey can go ahead immediately.

I need to complete by the end of the month so this post is worrying me!

Good Luck

80schild

I think ours took about 4 weeks-this was party due though to the mortgage advisor taking a two week holiday!

kford224

tristinh wrote: »

Hi all,

We had an offer accepted on a property on 15th February and let our independent mortgage advisor know the same day and gave her all the details. She re-did her search and reccommended the Abbey (Santander) as the best deal. We gave the nod based on the the illustration she showed us on 16th of Feb and physically gave her all the ID, pay slips, bank statements etc the same day.

Interestingly enough we are at a similar stage to you!

We had our offer (we're also FTBs) accepted Tuesday last week (8 March) and the same day I called Santander and secured a mortgage deal. He did the credit checks over the phone and said they were good and explained that it would go to underwriting. I faxed them copies of our last three months payslips and bank statements, they didn't need ID as we were on the register.

On Wednesday 9th I received a letter from the EA confirming the offer had been accepted and the vendors details/solicitors details.

On Saturday 12th we received a load of paperwork from our solicitor with a Stamp Duty form and two other things that needed signing, which we have posted back today along with copies of our passports and driving licenses.

I have given Santander a call to check there is nothing else they need and they have failed to ring me back on two occasions, but I am assuming that everything is OK so far. They did send me a load of stuff in the post, but the guy on the phone said I didn't need to do anything with it atm (even though there is a page with his signature on and lines for ours..)

Keep us posted!! Will be interesting to see how our experiences compare

Catatonia

I went with HSBC and it was agreed within a couple of days, with the valuation being done and mortgage offer sent the next week.

I have banked with Santander though and have been appalled at their lack of customer service so although it seems a long time to me, it could be normal for Santander.

tristinh

Wow my MA called last night. She confessed her IT must have been out of date as she had reccommended a mortgage deal that was no longer valid! We are back to square one now! She then detailed the best offer with Santander (0.28% higher than previous) and when I asked if that was still the best offer, she said she didn't know! She then searched while I was on the phone and said it wasn't the best offer, but that they are a good company and the difference over the fixed period wasn't that much compared to the Northern Rock 'best deal'.

I looked it up and it is £3500 more over the fixed period. I emailed her late last night and asked to to do a full search to find the best deal and she STILL hasn't responded - not even an aknowledgement. You would have thought she would want to please as they cocked up!!!

Should we ditch her and apply straight to a lender? What are the benefits of the MA? I am failing to see any at the moment. I am sure most are fab at their jobs though!

kingstreet

Oh blimey. Or stronger words to that effect.

Guilty of not updating her sourcing system? Hm. That's interesting. However, when you do an online application to Abbey, Halifax etc you have to select the product from a list of available products at that time. You wouldn't be able to choose a product that wasn't there!

So how could she do an application and not know this immediately? Unless she left the application too long and the product was gone by the time she got around to keying the app.

Not good. Lousy advert for the good job most of us do.

kford224

tristinh wrote: »

Wow my MA called last night. She confessed her IT must have been out of date as she had reccommended a mortgage deal that was no longer valid! We are back to square one now! She then detailed the best offer with Santander (0.28% higher than previous) and when I asked if that was still the best offer, she said she didn't know! She then searched while I was on the phone and said it wasn't the best offer, but that they are a good company and the difference over the fixed period wasn't that much compared to the Northern Rock 'best deal'.

I looked it up and it is £3500 more over the fixed period. I emailed her late last night and asked to to do a full search to find the best deal and she STILL hasn't responded - not even an aknowledgement. You would have thought she would want to please as they cocked up!!!

Should we ditch her and apply straight to a lender? What are the benefits of the MA? I am failing to see any at the moment. I am sure most are fab at their jobs though!

Oh no, that really sucks

I've just got off the phone to Santander for the third time. All I want to do is confirm that they received the paperwork I sent over a week ago....they promised for a third time that someone will ring me back, but until this has been sorted it can't go to underwriting! :mad:

We applied directly as we could get a better deal than through our MA. However, our MA did recommmend we do it that way, so has been a massive help It may be worth looking around to see if you can get a better deal? Your current MA doesn't sound especially reliable