Waiting 5 weeks for mortgage - advice please

rasselin

We've applied for a mortgage with The Principality through a broker and have been waiting 5 weeks for a decision to date and still haven't got anywhere. I'm worried any further delay and the sale will fall through. Advice please!

We applied through a broker 5 weeks ago. We paid upfront for survey and credit check costs to the amount of about £650. We submitted all info requested straight away. A couple of weeks later they asked for ID & 3 months bank statements which we submitted the same day. Not sure why this wasn't requested at the beginning.

We've been told they have done the valuation but they can't tell us the results of this. Apparently they have a backlog and our documents have yet to be assessed. I chased again with the broker yesterday and she said that she had just been informed that now our application has been pulled for random audit. They can't give any timelines and they still haven't assessed our documents. She still couldn't get them to say if the valuation had come back ok.

The wait is stressing us all out as the people we are buying from are putting pressure on to move things along quicker. On the face of it, t seems our only option is to wait and see but I'd appreciate any advice.

Does anyone know how long audits take? And how they can do these before they've assessed us?

We aren't self-employed and we don't have any unusual circumstances. Is this length of time unusual for mortgage applications? Everyone I've spoken to seems to have had an answer within 3 weeks so I was expecting to have had an answer by now.

Thanks for any thoughts on this!

confused_kid

Hi, have you spoken to your mortgage advisor, what does he have to say? I presume he is chasing them for updates?

Probably doesn't help so much, but we had an offer accepted on a house on 21/09/2012 and had a mortgage offer through via post (Halifax) last week, so 3 weeks. Prior to accepting the offer I had already provided my advisor with all of our statements, payslips etc in preparation.

All lenders are different, I don't have experience but have heard on these forums of some lenders taking over 8 weeks...wouldn't have thought it was the busiest time for mortgage applications either at this time of the year...perhaps you should ask for MA to chase for an update.

Good luck, I hope you get your answer soon.

rasselin

Hi confused kid

Thanks. Yeah we had an update yesterday which was that they had done the valuation (they aren't allowed to tell us the outcome), but they hadn't assessed our documents as they have a large backlog, and our case had also just been pulled for a random audit which they won't give us any idea of a time frame for.

Sound like I might be joining the 8 weekers! Wow it sounds like such a long time. No wonder so many sales are falling through.

The thing that's more annoying is that they won't give any suggestion of how much longer we should expect things to take. Guess we've got no choice now but to cross fingers and hope we get an offer before the seller gets too fed up waiting on us!

Has anyone applied for a mortgage through The Principality or been through a random audit before?

kingstreet

By way of background, the mortgage market is around a quarter of the size it used to be. As a consequence, lenders have disappeared and those that are still around have reduced their staff numbers by massive amounts.

Let's face it, they haven't got rid of the minimum wage kids, they've got rid of the expensive, experienced staff. As a consequence, applications take longer, as the underwriter's desk has become a bottleneck every application has to pass through on its way to the offer printer.

If a lender issues a very good product, or keeps a decent product available when all the other lenders suddenly pull back, it can find itself inundated with applications and with less capacity to deal with them. As a result, turnaround times increase and it takes longer for everything to be done.

The simple answer is to not apply for the lowest possible rate in the hope that a lender with a middle of the road kind of rate will have unused capacity to deal quickly with an application. Try convincing a borrower to pay another £20, £30 or more a month to get that though.

Conrad

rasselin wrote: »

The thing that's more annoying is that they won't give any suggestion of how much longer we should expect things to take.

This answer they give you is the ONLY honest. Ignore anyone who tells you otherwise - they only say it to make themselves popular (telling people what they want to here is a sure fire sign of a cheesey sales type).

The answer I always give is 'no one can possibly know' as often one question leads to another and so on.
If the lender gave you an indication the danger is many a client would interpret this as a deadline and then hit the roof if not met.

I just did a case with this lender and it took about 6 weeks - very straight forward case.

People should not go for cheapest deal if it's speed that matters. I always take this into account with clients. If you are a worryer, don't choose a populater super cheap deal unless you can sit it out!

rasselin

Conrad, thanks for your answer, it's good to know that someone else has used them and got through. I hadn't heard of the lender and found very few reviews so that's reassuring to hear. You're right we did chose based on their rate not speed, but I didn't really envisage things dragging on for more than a month. We're ftbs and as I said everyone's been telling us there's was 3 weeks max. Will be more prepared for this next time! Although if it secures us a good deal in the end it will be worth the stress!

Wantahouse_2

We are hopefully coming to the end of our mortgage application. We applied on August 23rd, and only had the valuation survey done this week - so nearly 8 weeks just to get to valuation stage. We've been told the valuer valued at offer price which is good but apparanltly the survey still has to be assessed so no indication as to when we might get the actual offer.

Its a bit annoying because our rent is due next week and if we don't give notice we will be tied into another month which will bring us to the end of December. Searches and contracts etc are done, we are ready to exchange - just waiting for the elusive offer!

In summary, I feel your pain!

Principality_representative

Hi,

I represent Principality Building Society and wanted to let you know that we have read your post.

One of the things we pride ourselves on at Principality is strong customer service, but unfortunately due to the current demand for mortgage products we are currently struggling to meet our usual high standard of service.

We recognise how important this process is to you and apologise for any delays. We are doing all we can to prioritise and get through the backlog as soon as possible.

Thanks,
Principality Mortgage Team