Halifax mortgage application - what next?

weebubbles

Hi, I spoke to a mortgage advisor today from the halifax and she took all mine and husbands details about wages and employer etc.
She then went on to ask about the property we are buying e.g. whether it had a gargage, gas central heating etc.
She then said she would have a look at our credit report to see if a late credit card payment would have affected the amount we can borrow to which she said it hadnt affected it.
They are now going to get the house valued and I have an appointment with them on Tuesday and only have to take mine and husbands most recent payslip and nothing else. She said it didnt even matter if he was there or not.
I checked my credit report tonight and it is reporting a search done by them today and says first mortgage (even though this will be my second)
Does this mean they have credit searched me or done a soft search for an AIP? Can anything go wrong now?
Thanks

SusieWoozy_2

our mortgage application was done through a broker to the halifax, we were approved at AIP stage and we only had to show payslips, one for me 3 for my OH. Advised everything was going to be OK. Valuation was instructed and guess what... we were declined. Something about a problem with a linked address (we are waiting to find out what it is) I thought Hlifax did a credit check at AIP stage but someone else on another thread said it was just a soft check. Hopefully know more later and find out whether or not it's worth going elsewhere. Nothing on our credit report shows up differently to what we knew at AIP point. Hope you ave much better luck than we're having

kingstreet

weebubbles wrote: »

Hi, I spoke to a mortgage advisor today from the halifax and she took all mine and husbands details about wages and employer etc.
She then went on to ask about the property we are buying e.g. whether it had a gargage, gas central heating etc.
She then said she would have a look at our credit report to see if a late credit card payment would have affected the amount we can borrow to which she said it hadnt affected it.
They are now going to get the house valued and I have an appointment with them on Tuesday and only have to take mine and husbands most recent payslip and nothing else. She said it didnt even matter if he was there or not.
I checked my credit report tonight and it is reporting a search done by them today and says first mortgage (even though this will be my second)
Does this mean they have credit searched me or done a soft search for an AIP? Can anything go wrong now?
Thanks

You've submitted a full application, been credit scored and the valuer has been instructed.

The term "first mortgage" means first charge on a property as opposed to the applicant's first ever mortgage. Second mortgage would indicate a secured loan, or a second charge.

At any time upto completion, your case is subject to the possibility of random audit where all the information you have given is double checked and three months payslips and three months bank statements could be requested on top of any additional documentation required.

Approximately 8% of applications to Halifax is audited. Most will pass audit with no problem. Some will no doubt be declined where additional information comes to light during the audit process.

r83_2

SuzieWoozy - Has your application been formally Declined?? Or is it been hold back for some checks or something? My broker keeps telling me that we will have offer tomorrow for past 2 days, I have started to worry a tiny bit

gingapete

I currently have my mortgage with the Halifax on their SVR as it came to the end of a 5 year fixed at the end of last year. The SVR meant I saved £80 a month so I was happy with that.


Then a the first few months of this year I started looking in to remortgaing to put a kitchen extension in and to finish the rest of the house off.



I booked an appointment with the Halifax advisor and turned up ten mins early on the day. The advisor was 30 mins late which didn’t go down too well as this now made me late for work :mad: but I did get a free cup of coffee though!:beer:


The advisor asked me what I wanted to do today and she listened while I explained the following: I want to remortgage to get an extra £20K on my current mortgage and I would like it on a 5 year fixed rate, no insurance as already in place and no PPI just the remortgage. :T



I was then taken through the legally required info and then we sat down with all my docs, wage slips etc to work this out. After 20 mins I was told that there would be no problem with my application and I was then recommended to split my application leaving my current mortgage on the variable rate and take out the extra £20k on a 1 or 2 year tracker or 2 or 3 year fixed rate, this was nothing like I wanted! :mad: I explained again what I wanted and this was again ignored. So I asked again for what I wanted.


I was then told that I would have to have a specific offer (which was a shade over 6%) because my LTV was too high. I asked how this could be as I knew house prices were not good but one house sold over the way from me for £170,000 two months before, and it needed a total renovation, so I was guessing my house which is nearly finished would be around the same price or even a little more even with the current housing market being stagnant!



The advisor said they valued my house at £131,000 as this was an average price that they got using their affiliated web site.



I asked her to go on a few local estate agents sites, one is actually next door to the society, and check the sold and sold STC ones. The advisor skipped past this saying that they only used their valuation site and then said that because as i disagreed with their valuation I would now have to pay them £130-160 for a valuation! On top of this, and because I was an existing customer, I was then told I would only have to pay a £999 arrangement fee and £499 admin fee. :eek:



I informed the advisor that during my half hour lunch the day before I had checked out a few websites and found three offers First Direct, HSBC and another I can’t remember now and had found 5 year fixed rates, no arrangement fee, £99 admin and no legal costs or valuation costs and their rates were 3.96, 3.98 and 4.20! I then handed the advisor the print outs showing these offers.



She sat there and then said but with us you would not need to change or move anything and I could the mortgage quicker. So I asked if you don’t have to do as much work then why would I have to pay all the fee’s then? And why after paying you the best part of £2k would I want to add over 2% to a fixed rate mortgage! She then turned round and agreed with me and apologise for wasting my time.



I told her that they “Halifax” should pay a little bit more attention to what people want, what other products are out in the market and to not prey on people who think it would be too hard to switch mortgage vendors!


I thanked her for the coffee, for making me 2 hours late for work but said I would be leaving my mortgage at the SVR seeing as I was saving £80 a month, I would be waiting to see how the mortgage market pans out in the next few months and that I would NOT be taking a new mortgage up with the Halifax and I would be looking elsewhere.

So my experience with a Halifax mortgage advisor, well the one I saw, I deffinatley would be looking elsewhere beforehand! This is just my opinion by the way and I must say that 5 years earlier they were pretty good, although I did have to call them to chase up my application quite a bit to buy my house which I actually bought from their Halifax branch of Estate Agents next door!!

kingstreet

Thing is, pete, you weren't remortgaging you were asking your existing lender for further borrowing. It may seem a narrow distinction but there's a world of difference between the two.

Remortgage products are designed to entice borrowers away from their existing lender's SVR. Often, remortgage products are fee-free so transferring to another lender can be made free of charge.

The products a lender offers its existing borrowers are never as good, as there's always the possibility that you can't remortgage for some reason, or you'll view the transfer process as being too much hassle. Lenders are happy to see borrowers walk out through the back door while welcoming new ones in the front.

It's a daft situation but one lenders use to chase the new business market share. In a couple of years of being with someone else, Halifax will welcome you back through that front door chucking "new borrower" rates at you like there's no tomorrow.

Introductory "shag-pile" lending, you might say.

gingapete

kingstreet wrote: »

Thing is, pete, you weren't remortgaging you were asking your existing lender for further borrowing.

Kingstreet: It does sound like that, but, what i asked for was a total remortgage to cover the outstanding amount and the extra was fo rmy kitchen extention and all the print outs that i got from the advisor was all remortgaging offers not about further borrowing. I wish i wasn't so disgusted at the time that i kept the print outs!

Oh i do like a good shag pile offer!!

weebubbles

They have also done an unrecorded enquiry on me today for £121500. Now we hadnt said an exact amount we wanted to borrow, just around £102000.
Could this be the maximum they are willing to lend (2 months ago they will will to give us £180000) or could it be the value of the house we want to by as that was valued at £120000 by the home reoprt? The halifax were getting it valued.
Are they likely to do another search/enquiry?

kingstreet

weebubbles wrote: »

They have also done an unrecorded enquiry on me today for £121500. Now we hadnt said an exact amount we wanted to borrow, just around £102000.
Could this be the maximum they are willing to lend (2 months ago they will will to give us £180000) or could it be the value of the house we want to by as that was valued at £120000 by the home reoprt? The halifax were getting it valued.
Are they likely to do another search/enquiry?

An unrecorded enquiry is an address/voter's roll check not visible to other searchers in future. A credit check says "first mortgage" or something similar.

weebubbles

does anyone know if they will do another credit check on us?