Britannia fee-free exclusive

edallen41

Hi,

I am a FTB with my partner and I'm looking at 90% mortgages. We're both junior doctors (not considering Scottish Widow as they don't actually provide the best deal at this LTV).

Just wondering if anyone has any experience of or opinion on the Britannia fee-free exclusive through Sharetobuy? Please bear in mind it is a standard purchase joint (i.e. friends or couple) mortgage, NOT a share-purchase. But it seems to good to be true (and this makes me skeptical). These are some details:

Share to buy is an affinity partner of Britannia and we offer exclusive 90% fee-free mortgages only available through sharetobuy.com with rates starting from 3.79%. These are completely 'normal' mortgages for standard open market purchase, not government schemes, but they are restricted to joint applications by graduates and professionals. There are currently two products:

3.79% lifetime discount for a 10% deposit with no up front fees AT ALL. That means there is no arrangement fee, no administration fee and no standard valuation fee. Most importantly, you are never tied in because there are no early repayment charges, meaning that you could remortgage to another Britannia product or another lender at any time without penalty, and there is no limit to overpayments. Get an illustration.

The 3.79% lifetime discount product is a variable rate which is 0.95% below Britannia's standard variable rate (SVR), currently 4.74%, for the lifetime of the mortgage, giving a current rate payable of 3.79%. The overall cost for comparison is 3.9% APR.

Alternatively, we offer a fee-free two year fixed rate of 3.99%, fixed until 28th February 2015. This also comes with no up front fees at all, including a free standard valuation. Early repayment charges apply until 28th February 2015. Overall cost for comparison is 4.7% APR. If you have at least two applicants who are both graduates or have professional qualifications, download a key facts illustration now showing the full cost of each option (but please also read the criteria summary below).

We meet their criteria, so I'm tempted to go for it. Any thoughts? Thanks for any input

Cheers,

Ed

(I'm aware its been posted about before, but there's been very little response)

Arbee

Hi,

We were in a very similar boat to you a few weeks ago - it seemed far too good to be true, and could find no recent discussion of it. We decided to apply anyway, but made sure we knew what our "backup" mortgage would be if it turned out to be vapourware. However, we are currently 1 letter away from having our mortgage offer, so I am feeling quite a bit more confident now! Our circumstances are fairly similar to yours, so I will describe our experience and hopefully it will prove helpful.

I work in IT, but my wife is an ST2 trainee on a run-through training program. Our timeline for our application (for the 3.79% lifetime tracker, with 10% deposit) was roughly as follows:

30th October: Submitted full application.

5th November: Asked to email a payslip (each of us), a proof of address and a proof of ID. We attached scans of passport/driving licence and payslips and sent by email on the 6th, which was fine.

7th November: STB submitted application to Britannia.

13th November: Britannia agreed offer subject to valuation and proof of income. By this point credit checks had been done. Britannia contacted us to request 3 most recent payslips for me, but had written to the hospital for a reference for my wife. Britannia also advised that their process is to look at the application once a week and update as necessary. They contact you once a week to advise of progress as well.

20th November: Britannia contacted us to confirm that valuation had been performed and was satisfactory, and that my payslips were satisfactory. Still waiting from hospital HR.

27th November: Response back from hospital HR is that my wife is on a 6-month contract. ARRRRGGGGHHHH! This is technically true - she is on a 6-month contract with that hospital as she rotates around for training. I supply details of the *deanery* training lady and they agree to contact her for confirmation.

We're expecting to hear from them next on 3rd December - hopefully they will have validated my wife's employment status and we will have our mortgage offer (*crosses fingers*).

A few extra points:

1) If you are F1/F2, then you may have an issue because you are technically on a 2-year contract, not in permanent employment. Once you have submitted your application, you will be assigned an STB representative - I would phone them to discuss this issue - it will probably save you some time further down the road.
2) I understand that they operate on a "Strictly no adverse credit" principle. We checked both our Experian and Equifax files and both were completely clean, so I cannot advise on whether a late payment or similar would count as adverse credit. However, really you will want to be squeaky clean I think.
3) I'm assuming you are both in banded posts? If so, you will need to put your basic pay in the application, but add your banding as a "Shift Allowance" (or, at least, that's what we did and it seems to have been fine). I should also note that we didn't actually need my wife's shift allowance to come in under the 3.75x maximum income multiple so I don't know how much account they will take of the banding.
4) You can upgrade the free valuation to a homebuyers report or structural survey, and you just pay the difference, which is nice!
5) In terms of dealing with Britannia, I have been very happy. Their phones get answered quickly (longest wait was about 3 minutes?), the staff are friendly and helpful, and they read your notes properly before they talk to you!! STB were also fine, but the application was so smooth that we didn't really have to speak to them, so I can't comment.

LawrenceAMN

Junior Doctors on training rotation will often be rejected by Lenders.

Lenders don't like the nature of your contracts and don't really understand band earnings.

I will be interested to see if this product results in many mortgage offers for Doctors on Foundation programmes.

edallen41

Just spoken to Sharetobuy, they said that doctors in training is not normally a problem as long as you can demonstrate you'll be in a given area for a significant period - we'll get our job offers for the next 2 (or 3 in my case) years of training in Feb, so can hold out til then. Income is not an issue, as this rises modestly with each new post and we're basing our affordability on what we could pay now without any banding (supplementary income for amount of on cals done).

That said, the way more offers are coming out for 90% LTV below 4%, maybe there'll be a comparable mortgage available elsewhere by then.

At the moment, I just can't see anything that comes close. I confirmed with them that there's no ERC, no limit on overpayments and I can leave without penalty anytime - why have I found nothing this good elsewhere?

tr5ad

Hi Ed,

I'm about to put a application in for this mortgage product, I know there are no fees or tie in's but are you aware of any minimum amount of time before you can change your mortgage product?

Thanks,

Rich

Arbee

Just to update this thread with my Britannia experience - we've got our mortgage offer WOOHOO! Just in time for Christmas (although we'll have to move in the new year obviously!).

It took longer than expected because the salary needed to be confirmed by the hospital, and the employment contract by the Deanery, but apart from that the process has been very smooth, and I've been pleased by Britannia.

So we are getting the cheapest 90% mortgage on the market by a long shot Very pleased!

Toothfairy4

Just submitted our full.application to them. Feeling super nervous now even though we both have nice clean credit records. Do they ask for bank statements? juzt so i can get them in order.

Arbee

They didn't ask for bank statements from us, but remember that the plural of anecdote is not data

Toothfairy4

Just to update. Submitted full application on 11th Jan and received the mortgage offer on 30th Jan! Have found Britannia very efficient and easy to deal with i have to say.

edallen41

Just to feedback, applied, was given AIP within 2 hours. Very easy application process, they knew exactly what a FY2 doctor was and weren't even thrown by the technicality of my partner working for three different trusts for 4 months each this year (with three different payrolls). All went through to completion very quickly and easily (in fact the only reason it's taken this long is because we were outbid on our first house offer and when the right place came along, the seller had visa issues with moving to Canada).

We now have a 3.79% rate on a £225,000 loan from a £25,000 deposit, repaying £1160 per month. No overpayment limits, £30 admin fee to leave any time (taking away the risk of not being fixed rate) and couldn't be happier!

Ed