Accord Mortgage Application Process

RichTe

Hello all, I found this forum a useful source of information whilst applying for my mortgage and wanted to share my experience of the process as it’ll hopefully be helpful for others.

Background: Self-employed with 3 years worth of accounts, applying with my wife who is employed. We had a 25% deposit. New mortgage application with good credit history. Applying for a 2 year tracker at 2.29%. £900 arrangement fee with £500 cash back on completion.

Our timeline was as follows:

13th Sept: Offer accepted on new home.
16th Sept: Mortgage application started by broker.
20th Sept: Agreement in principle received.
21st Sept: Provided payment detail for arrangement and valuation fee.
23rd Sept: Arrangement fee processed.
28th Sept: Application documents submitted (proof of earnings: payslips from my wife and SA302s from me, bank statements etc. etc.)
30th Sept: Queries from Accord about ownership of company and asked for accountant's details
3rd Oct: Call from Accord asking for the arrangement fee (that had been paid on 23rd Sept!)
7th Oct: Paid for searches with solicitor
10th Oct: Further questions from Accord around transactions on my accounts. Valuation survey happened.
11th Oct: Call from the accountant to say they received a letter (dated 5th Oct) from Accord asking for my business accounts. It turned out they didn’t need them and this letter was automatically generated. The SA302s cover everything they needed. £50 for the accountant’s time which wasn’t necessary.
12th Oct: Mortgage approved
14th Oct: Formal mortgage offer received
27th Oct: Completion and moving day

The £500 cash back gets paid to your solicitor. We’d arranged for the mortgage payments to come out on 15th of the month, however, 2 months into the arrangement we received a letter from Accord to say we were in arrears on the account (as payment was due on 1st of the month according to their records). We called and had them correct the error and remove any record of us being in arrears which they said they’ve done but I have a feeling it might still be on our history and dredged up, should we ever get in difficulty.

So, all sorted in just 6 weeks from our offer being accepted to completing (with plenty of chasing on our part). Hope this information proves useful to someone.

Meeper

6 weeks from application to completion is good work in anyone's book.