Pestering Mortgage Broker?

NervousHomeowner

Racml34 wrote: »

I have to say our IFA was fantastic. Called and emailed us regularly with updates, went out if his way when he needed to see us in person, seeing us in the evening and weekends. We had an issue with retention on our mortgage and he took most of the stress out if it as he was so efficient and reassured us at every stage. Although he gave us quotes for insurances he made it clear we were under no pressure to buy from him and in one case actually recommended we get our own quotes too. I am convinced that if not for him our purchase would have taken a lot longer as he continually chased the lender etc.

If you're feeling like this now then maybe tell him how worried you are? He should be there to help you not adding to the stress

Thanks for the reply & for sharing your experience! It sounds like your broker was invaluable.

I talked to our broker shortly after my last reply and I do feel a little better, although still pretty peeved. It has now transpired that our offer is going to go through on Tuesday now, not Today or tomorrow as we were first told. That is now going to be 4 weeks since we instructed him, and we haven't even got our application approved yet.

chappers wrote: »

Yep get a new broker, you say it has taken your broker 4 weeks to get as far as submitting an application.
Don't hang around with this joker as I fear you will only have more trouble down the line.
My last mortgage for a home move took just over 2 weeks from meeting the IFA to full offer. As ajayre said mortgage products change constantly and you broker should be submitting the application on line with documents to follow.
My advice ditch him and definitely don't take out any insurance from him without getting other quotes first, insurance is a bit of a minefield,.
We took out some life cover about 4 years ago through our bank as it turned out to be over £20 a month cheaper than our existing for the same cover, just out of interest this year I looked on confused.com and found the same level of cover with the same insurer(aviva) for a further £12 a month less. I even phoned aviva to check it was the same and they confirmed that and so i cancelled the policy and reapplied on line.

See, I thought 2 weeks to put the application through would be more than enough so to hear that you went from meeting with your IFA to getting an offer in that time definitely makes me think this is taking too long! As I've said before, our application is more complicated than most but I do now feel that it is taking an excessive amount of time. I spoke to our broker after my last post and he has said that it is being held up by the building society because they didn't get the KeyFacts illustration to him until today but surely that should have been sorted ages ago?

I've contacted the EA to ask their opinion and might contact another broker we know tomorrow, after seeing what my partner thinks.

Thanks for the advice about Life Insurance cover - Broker came back to me with a £9.20pcm quote but that is for decreasing cover whereas I can get the same amount with level cover for less with another company. So I think I'll take your advice & shop around a bit more!

Out of interest, how important are things like redundancy cover and income protection? Our broker seems to think they're important and I'm inclined to think that redundancy cover is a good idea in this economy but do they really do anything? My partner's step father used to work in insurance and he said that he didn't think they were worth the paper they were written on, especially redundancy pay as my OH has only been in his new job for a few months. Any ideas?

Riobhca

Wow your mortgage broker sounds like a shocking waste of time and money. We decided against using a broker in the end as we found better deals directly with the lenders, applied to Nationwide online and have had it all sorted and signed off within a week.

I had a previous mortgage broker who literally tried to wear me down about all the other things they try and sell you. It was awful.

chappers

£9.20 is that for both of you, if so that is cheap, though you may be a bit younger than us and my family on both sides have a history of heart disease and diabetes not to mention I am a builder. We pay three times that for what started as £90,000 of decreasing cover over 15 years
I would agree with your partners father, you would be far better off saving some money, we like to keep 5-6 times our monthly income due to the fickle nature of my business, but would have thought if you were both employed a three month buffer would be enough.

Dave_Ham

Before you jump ship (although the broker sounds like a clown) you need to fully understand what part of the process you are up to.

Worst thing you could do is tell the Estate Agent, as they will be busy selling the house to someone else in the background if they are nervous.

There are not many lenders who need a guarantor and not many lenders that offer this, so you may want to give information here or on the mortgage sub forum and also declare the lender as some have long turnaround times at the moment.

I read your posts that they have still not put in a full application, but then you mention an offer on Tuesday so I am confused...

Have you pad for the valuation, has it been actioned are the first questions..?

NervousHomeowner

Riobhca wrote: »

Wow your mortgage broker sounds like a shocking waste of time and money. We decided against using a broker in the end as we found better deals directly with the lenders, applied to Nationwide online and have had it all sorted and signed off within a week.

I had a previous mortgage broker who literally tried to wear me down about all the other things they try and sell you. It was awful.

We couldn't go direct to the banks as we needed a specific mortgage to suit our needs, so for us a broker was best He's not entirely a waste of time, he is very polite and friendly and has gone out of his way to accommodate us. I just feel like it's going very slowly is all, and I don't know if it's because he's holding us up or I'm expecting too much in a short amount of time.

chappers wrote: »

£9.20 is that for both of you, if so that is cheap, though you may be a bit younger than us and my family on both sides have a history of heart disease and diabetes not to mention I am a builder. We pay three times that for what started as £90,000 of decreasing cover over 15 years
I would agree with your partners father, you would be far better off saving some money, we like to keep 5-6 times our monthly income due to the fickle nature of my business, but would have thought if you were both employed a three month buffer would be enough.

I am sure the quote will go up when they inevitably take a family history But yes, we're early 20s so we always knew that we'd do quite well for life insurance. Plus we only have a small mortgage so I suppose that comes into it too

Glad you're in agreement! Obviously we have to have the life insurance but I can't see any reason why we'd be off for such a long period of time that sick pay or disability benefit wouldn't provide the same income each month as the income protection insurance. We had a good amount of money as a small buffer but have gone through it this year due to various reasons so that is dwindling. Our outgoings will be much lower when/if we get the mortgage though, so we should be able to save up another buffer pretty quickly.

Dave_Ham wrote: »

Before you jump ship (although the broker sounds like a clown) you need to fully understand what part of the process you are up to.

Worst thing you could do is tell the Estate Agent, as they will be busy selling the house to someone else in the background if they are nervous.

There are not many lenders who need a guarantor and not many lenders that offer this, so you may want to give information here or on the mortgage sub forum and also declare the lender as some have long turnaround times at the moment.

I read your posts that they have still not put in a full application, but then you mention an offer on Tuesday so I am confused...

Have you pad for the valuation, has it been actioned are the first questions..?

Would rather not give too much away about our finances but the mortgage is a special type through a building society, specifically designed to have a guarantor. That's why I wondered if maybe it was taking so long, because obviously it isn't as straight forward as your typical mortgage.

Sorry, when I said offer with regards to Tuesday I meant our mortgage application. We haven't paid for the valuation and nothing has been actioned. I had a valuation with Homebuyers arranged through a local surveyor but was told to cancel it by my broker, with the promise that he would rearrange it through the lender. However, he says he can't arrange that until our mortgage application has been sent to the lender, which now isn't happening until Tuesday. Our Broker has our bank details and the money is waiting in our account to pay for the mortgage checks and the valuation but so far, no money has been taken for it.

I really don't understand what is going on because, in my mind, we had signed everything and the mortgage app. was all ready to go yesterday (According to what my broker had previously said) so I'm really confused why it is now taking an extra 3 days to go through.

Dave_Ham

Fair enough about the detail, but it means any information provided will be more speculative and less specific and therefore could be misleading.

I would suspect that given the signature requirements this will be something like the Aldermore family guarantee mortgage and therefore with the Building Societies this will be the painful manual forms.

I would be interested if the broker charged you a fee, as this is a lot of work for small financial reward assuming the flat is likely to be under £200,000

If fee free which I suspect, you may be bottom of their work list as the forms are exhaustive on some of these cases.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but given the type of product I think you are applying for and the likely process this will be anything but quick.

BS's are not know for the speed of their underwriting, valuation, mortgage offers and generally the processing slickness and would start to manage the Estate Agent early.

I fear your situation and thread will go on and on, although wish you well and hopefully you will get a mortgage offer quicker than I suspect; which from the limited information I would guess at the very least 3 weeks from today.

Fingers crossed

chappers

Ah far from standard mortgage application, all becomes a little clearer now, as Dave has said keep the EA/vendor in the loop and just be patient.Make sure you get documents back to your IFA promptly etc. Once the application is in the process will have it's own time try not to get too stressed about it

kingstreet

Is your Mum a joint applicant with you, a true guarantor mortgage through the likes of The Mortgage Works, or Woolwich, or is it a family-assist type product where she puts up her savings or property as additional security, such as Barclays Springboard, or Tipton & Coseley, or Marsden BS?

NervousHomeowner

Dave_Ham wrote: »

Fair enough about the detail, but it means any information provided will be more speculative and less specific and therefore could be misleading.

I would suspect that given the signature requirements this will be something like the Aldermore family guarantee mortgage and therefore with the Building Societies this will be the painful manual forms.

I would be interested if the broker charged you a fee, as this is a lot of work for small financial reward assuming the flat is likely to be under £200,000

If fee free which I suspect, you may be bottom of their work list as the forms are exhaustive on some of these cases.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but given the type of product I think you are applying for and the likely process this will be anything but quick.

BS's are not know for the speed of their underwriting, valuation, mortgage offers and generally the processing slickness and would start to manage the Estate Agent early.

I fear your situation and thread will go on and on, although wish you well and hopefully you will get a mortgage offer quicker than I suspect; which from the limited information I would guess at the very least 3 weeks from today.

Fingers crossed

Oh no, this doesn't sound promising then It isn't as complicated as a family mortgage, if I understand correctly? Might as well give the info anyway. It is the step up product provided by Coventry BS which is an add on to the mortgages they provide. We are providing the funds but my mum is going on the mortgage as well as it allows us to borrow more while still keeping it as a joint mortgage. We chose this because I am providing the deposit (£40,000) but will be going back to university & will therefore be classed as a dependent on my partner, which seriously reduces the amount we can borrow.

The other option was to gift the money to my partner and have the mortgage just in his name but we aren't married so it leaves me very little claim to the house if things go sour and/or he passes away. So we were advised that this was the best option for us.

The broker is charging us a fee of £250 (The flat is worth £122,000) so I would bloody hope we aren't at the bottom of his list! I am hoping it will go smoothly from now on. I contacted the broker and laid everything out on the table - he said it has taken so long because he has been doing the underwriting necessary to get everything through smoothly? I really don't know anything about mortgages (I work in illustration, as far away from numbers as possible!) so I don't know if this is a legitimate reason but from your post it sounds right?

chappers wrote: »

Ah far from standard mortgage application, all becomes a little clearer now, as Dave has said keep the EA/vendor in the loop and just be patient.Make sure you get documents back to your IFA promptly etc. Once the application is in the process will have it's own time try not to get too stressed about it

As I said before, all our documents are with our broker. Whenever he has asked me for documents, I have provided them as quickly as I can physically manage. I'm glad to hear that maybe there is a reason for it to be this slow!

kingstreet wrote: »

Is your Mum a joint applicant with you, a true guarantor mortgage through the likes of The Mortgage Works, or Woolwich, or is it a family-assist type product where she puts up her savings or property as additional security, such as Barclays Springboard, or Tipton & Coseley, or Marsden BS?

She is a joint applicant/guarantor. We are putting up our savings for the deposit, she is just signing on as a guarantor to act as a guarantor should we not be able to meet our monthly repayments (which is ridiculous because they are less than we currently pay in rent!). I honestly didn't realise that made things so complicated for the broker - it explains why things are maybe taking so long now!

kingstreet

By way of introduction, here's Coventry's step-up criteria;-

'Step-up' is a product we have designed to help first time buyers get onto the property ladder. The income of a parent, guardian or close relative is taken into account with that of the first time buyer when assessing the maximum loan available to the applicants. It is also for those needing help to buy a new property following divorce or separation (the main applicant). Step-up can be used on all first time buyer and standard residential mortgage products.

This is not a guarantor mortgage (we do not permit the use of a guarantor in any circumstances), as both parties join the transaction as owner and mortgagor.

Eligibility

The main applicant must usually be a first time buyer, though other situations may be considered such as cases of divorce/separation or where the applicant is moving to a more expensive location.
The other party must be a parent or other close relative.
The minimum age of all applicants is 18 years.
The maximum age of the parent or other relative at the date of application is 65 years and the maximum lending age of the main applicant at the end of the mortgage term is 75 years.
All applicants must reside in the UK.
Properties must be situated in England, mainland Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. We will not lend on properties in the Scottish Isles.
Specific Step-up lending policy

The maximum total loan is £250,000.
The maximum loan to value is 90%. Loan to value is dependent on product availability. The entire loan must be taken out on a repayment basis.
The maximum repayment term is 35 years.
The minimum admissible income of the main applicant is £15,000.
Loan amount must not exceed 7 times the main applicant's admissible annual income.
The main applicant must have been in continuous employment for at least one year.
Only the income of one main applicant and one other party may be taken into account.
Where the mortgage term exceeds the other party's 70th birthday and they are within 20 years before our maximum lending age at the date of application, evidence of retirement income is required. Income multiples applied on Step-up mortgages are based on the age of the main applicant.