Help and advice needed - FTB nightmare

ftbnightmare

I'm in such a stress over this mortgage process!
Let me explain - my partner and I are FTB's in full time jobs with a joint salary of around £30k. We have been told by our WOM IFA to go for a Northern Rock together mortgage - £65k for price of house and an extra £15k for renovations etc. This will be a 100%+ mortgage (no deposit)
Everything has moved along SO slowly. About 4 months into the process now and only recently has the solicitor been instructed and valuation completed.
Price of property was estimated by valuer to be worth £90k.
Now, after valuation and solicitor had been sent contracts from our seller, we assumed everything was proceeding nicely. However, after finally managing to get hold of NR they have said they want 6 months worth of payslips for us both (or whatever we can get) and a letter of reference from my employer as its a new job I am in.
Why have they asked for these - AFTER the agreement in principle?
We're both so confused.
Our IFA is useless - we only ever manage to speak to his secretary who, fair play to her does the ringing round for us and tries to find out as much as she can.
We rung her yesterday to ask exactly where we are at and roughly how long to expect - she said once these documents have been received it is a matter of checking we have no CCJ's or arrears and then it will all be complete???
This is where we are confused - is that not the credit check part of the application?
At exactly WHAT point are you credit checked in the application process?
The thing is, my credit rating is not brilliant. There have been several late payments and a couple missed because of a period of absence in work due to ill health - i have no CCJ's or serious defaults and have been over my overdraft once or twice.
We thought this credit check would have been carried out BEFORE an agreement in principle?
I've just got a horrible feeling that now we have paid our solicitor fees and valuation fees NR are going to say NO we are not giving you the money due to bad credit.
What do you think?
Is that likely to happen - are we likely to get the mortgage?! Have we even been credit checked yet?
We are so confused and stressed

herbiesjp

It does not sound like your IFA has spent much time with you and explained the whole process

You say that only now the soliciotrs have been instructed, but they are instructed by you when you are ready for them to start doing the legal work for you

The value of the peorpty is £90k but you are buying for £65k and the £15k to do it up.

When was the agreement in principle (AIP) done? WHen was the full application submitted?

You are credit checked at the (AIP) stage. When the full application is submitted, the lender will want to verify all the information you have stated i.e. income etc, so it is nothing out of the ordinary to request this. To be honest this kind of information is requested at the outset from the lender, and so your IFA would normally request this when submitting the full application for you

Just to re-cap, the credit check is done when the IFA has applied for the agreement in principle for you

I would ask to see a copy of the agreement in principle from the IFA to see when they did the AIP and what the response was

I'm a little confused at when this four months starts, and when you have actually submitted the application

Are you paying the IFA a fee?

ftbnightmare

I am going to ring IFA today and demand to see a copy of our AIP as we have only ever had verbal confirmation from IFA's secretary that we even have AIP.
We first saw IFA in Mid March
He got all information needed from us - ID etc but told us it was unecessary to take wageslips, bank statements, p60's etc at that time as they are rarely needed (?!)
Told us he was submitting the application next day.
Every day for next month was another story - i was in temp work which he told us would be no problem but then he blamed this for the delays.
I then obtained a better paid, permanent job and NR had put valuation on hold indefinitely until they received confirmation letter of new employment.
During this time, IFA told us NOT to instruct solicitor yet.
Eventually when Valuation had been completed, we were told to go ahead and instruct solicitor (which we did 3 weeks ago)
Now we have been asked for this extra information which we are in the process of gathering.
IFA is not fee-paid (thankfully) maybe this means we receive second rate service but honestly he has been awful. He refuses to speak to my partner and I, instead secretary does it all.
It is not just the delays we have been agry about, we just feel we have been misinformed from the very beginning. IFA obviously has no time for us and we get the impression he really can't be bothered. Our transaction obviously isn't earning him a big enough fee.
We are just so close to losing this house now I don't know what to do
We honestly have never seen an AIP in writing nor do we know dates of when things have been submitted.