Are HSBC and First Direct one and the same? The fine print would suggest they are ...

AnJ

Are HSBC and First Direct one and the same? The fine print would suggest they are...

Anyone have any experience with First Direct in terms of speed at which they are likely to work?

Thrugelmir

First Direct is indeed part of HSBC.


Depends on the circumstances of the mortgage application. Some sail through others take longer.

AnJ

Thanks Thrugelmir! I've read all kinds of dreadful things about HSBC so am a little wary ...

I'll give FD a call and see what they say (not that I'm sure I should believe their answer).

Thrugelmir

Both offer good interest rates. That's what really matters.

House purchase is a stressful experience. The lender is often a side show. Compared to the vendor (in my experience).

So suggest you take up yoga or something similar. Then just let the process take is natural course.

AnJ

This whole thing is remarkably stressful - the vendors would ideally like to move yesterday, we can theoretically move tomorrow, no-one else in chain, but as per our previous thread, the initial advice we took turned out to be less than ideal... (interest rate much higher than we were initially advised it would be, same details provided both times).

dunstonh

Both are also cherry pickers. If you have lending issues or pushing criteria then you would expect both to be more stringent than others.

AnJ

No lending issues or anything like that. Called FD - they reckon it'll take 2-4 weeks for an AIP, before which I'll need a FD account, which will take a week or two.... Just not sure it's worth it!

Thrugelmir

AnJ wrote: »

Just not sure it's worth it!

Why pay more interest on a mortgage than you need to?

goosander

I have recently been successful (I think) in applying for a high salary multiple (little over 4X) interest only offset, though all other factors apart from salary multiple were in my favour (single with no dependants, decent salary, no debt, LTV < 60%).

To give you an idea of time scales, I submitted the application online and the next day got a call from someone going over the application and asking some additional questions. The computer seemed to give a preliminary yes, so I was told the application would progress.

A couple of days later I got some bumph relating to a different mortgage than the one I had applied for, and a request to send in payslips & P60 etc.

A couple of weeks after that, I got another call from someone who asked a few more questions and then said they would be able to lend but not quite as much as I asked for (about 10K less) and asked if I wanted to proceed. I said yes.

A few days later, I was phoned at work to check my work phone number was genuine and asked for the name of my manager or HR officer so they could do an employment check.

About a week after that I received my ATM card, and a cheque book followed a few days later, still not got the PIN yet though.

At no point have I actually received a letter stating that I have been offered a mortage, other than the letter that came with the ATM card saying something vauge like 'welcome to your mortgage' but I presume I have been successful otherwise they wouldn't have bothered opening the current account.

All in all the written communication has been somewhat lacking though they have been fine on the phone. I would say it has taken about 5 weeks to get to the point of having the current account up and running.

Oh, one final thing though - whilst they were willing to give me quite a large mortgage & open a current account, they declined me for a credit card! Though they did say they would be likely to approve it once I had been banking with them for a few months.

Gentoo365

This probably will not help your case, but I will add in case anyone else finds it useful.

I applied recently for a First Direct mortgage, I already hold a current account with them.

They were able to make an initial decision over the phone and said that normally they would not even have needed to request any documentation. They only reason they needed to do so for me was that I have some non-standard pay (and hence they wanted to see payslips)

It took about 4 working days from sending the payslips for me to receive a text message saying it was approved subject to survey. They also said that the legal documentation was being sent to the solicitor.

2 days later I received a text message from the valuation company asking for me to ring them. I rang up, they took payment and then booked valuation for 2 days later.

The working day after the valuation I was able to ring up to confirm the valuation was acceptable and the day after I received a further text message to say that they were awaiting solicitors notification of completion date.

So from the point of view of an existing account holder I found the timescales to be acceptable. Only delay was caused by the backlog they have when processing incoming documents. However they were clear on this.

In terms of what their criteria is I don't really know. I do know that they are flexible in terms of amount they can lend, and the underwriters do have the ability to assess each case on it's own basis with regards to affordability.

However as said above they are tight on conduct, so people with credit issues (however minor) are going to have problems.

From my limited experience, including reading posts on this and other forums, First Direct are looking for 'prime' customers. Not in the sense of 'large income' or 'rich', but in the sense of 'perfect account conduct'.

AnJ

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Why pay more interest on a mortgage than you need to?

Reason to accept higher interest rate is that although not been looking at houses for that long in the flesh so to speak, have been looking online and in estate agents for 10 months - house we've found is the only one we have actually wanted to live in (right location, right house, right price).

However someone else wants the house too. The vendors have chosen our offer over theirs because we're chain free, however if it's going to take 5 weeks just to get the account with FD, we are likely to lose the house. Round here renting for another 10 months would be more than the difference over the term of the fixed rate - so not worth it if we can't find another property!

Re acceptability - credit rating should be fine (never defaulted on anything, no outstanding debts except student loan), but my job has involved same employer in different locations (NHS hospitals) and the previous one I worked at mucked up my P60 - HMRC have sent a letter to confirm exactly what I earned, how much tax I paid etc, but FD want a letter from my previous employer explaining it was their mistake - anyone who has experienced NHS payroll will understand that is likely to take forever (it took 3 months for them to acknowledge I'd rotated to a different hospital, and then they sent the documentation to my previous address 300 miles away, despite me having moved and told them the new address on my arrival at new place of work 10 months ago!).

Thanks for all the opinions and experiences everyone!