Mortgage - Natwest or Santander?

united4ever

Hi, Offer accepted but the buyer has urged me to get the bank to do the Survey ASAP to show commitment.

Seems like both Natwest and Santander will provide me with the mortgage I require at similar interest rates.

Do any of you know which one might be the quicker/more efficient one to deal with. I do have a Santander branch 2 minutes from my house and used to bank wit them....but does doing it in the branch make things any easier than through the call centre?

Also, If possible I would like to borrow about 20k more than I require to do an extension after we move in. Is this something Banks are agreeable with these days. Basically I have 90k from my sale and will be purchasing at 250K so £160k required to buy the house but I would like to borrow more to fund the extension. What are your thoughts?

Unitoons

I read on a couple of threads that Santander have significant delays with their mortgage applications (taking 6 - 12 weeks to arrange).
I have no personal experience of either provider though.

Kynthia

I find it's quicker to use an in dependant broker to do all the liaising as opposed to going direct. Also have you looked to see whether the mortgages differ in early repayment charges, allowing overpayments and the method allowed, etc?

You can only borrow up to a certain percentage of the property value or purchase price, whichever is the lower.

sydenhambased

We went through an independent broker that put our mortgage through Santander. Though we did have an initial meeting before Christmas (to sound out the possibility of buying - we're FTBs) the entire process took less than three weeks. We've not yet exchanged contracts but that's nothing to do with the mortgage - that's firmly in place.

circuit

We went through a broker to Santander and it took 6 weeks to get to a decline.
Went through a broker to Natwest and had an offer within 4 weeks.

Have a look at their intermediary sites and check the turnaround times. Natwest were a lot quicker when we applied.

Cambridge32

Avoid Natwest like the plague. Our friends re-mortgage took more than four months and resulted in a referral to the Ombudsman.

needabed

You get 1% cashback on mortgage payments for Santander and can overpay 10% a year.

leanne2901

Natwest have been brilliant - we applied and were accepted in principle in December - and they did the survey of property within a couple of days. Due to other problems we are still waiting to exchange, but all the problems that have come up Natwest have been really helpful and efficient with their response. One query that was supposed to take 2 working days (which we weren't told) i phoned and explained how urgent the situation was and was put on hold for 10 mins, when they told the they would look into it that afternoon and come back the next morning. Within a few minutes my solicitor called to say they had called her with the answer to query! Would definitely recommend Natwest - especially for FTB and 5% scheme.

united4ever

Thanks for that, good to hear. Have a phone interview next week (had the advisory interview last week). I too would like them to do the survey ASAP to show commitment to my seller....did you request they do the interview early in the process or did they just do it early for you anyway? It would be at least good if they would book it in even if it was a week or two later.

Also, on the phone they ask you all the questions do they then post you the forms out to fill in or are they being filled in during the call by them and they just post them out to you for a signature?

Thanks again

nick12

Using a broker it took 6 working days to get our mortgage offer from Santander recently. Others have had very different experiences!

leanne2901

united4ever wrote: »

Thanks for that, good to hear. Have a phone interview next week (had the advisory interview last week). I too would like them to do the survey ASAP to show commitment to my seller....did you request they do the interview early in the process or did they just do it early for you anyway? It would be at least good if they would book it in even if it was a week or two later.

Also, on the phone they ask you all the questions do they then post you the forms out to fill in or are they being filled in during the call by them and they just post them out to you for a signature?

Thanks again

Just a warning - my phone interview was almost 4 hours long, and I was using my mobile so I made sure I had the charger next to me, and a good COMFORTABLE spot with good signal (and food/drink!!) I did the phone interview and got offer in principle.. then the money for survey left my account a few days later and they called me with updates quite frequently which was nice. You can ask them how long roughly they think it will take for their valuation team to go out to look at the property depending on your location and how busy they are.
While our on the phone, the mortgage advisor at Natwest will be writing everything down - then they send you an information pack with all the answers to your questions etc. Make sure all the details are correct, the address on ours was wrong by one number so had to quickly advise them before the valuation was done on the wrong property!
Good luck with your application!