Employer refusing to give letter confirming employment to lender

samba

Just as in this thread, my wife's employer (a big national retailer) won't provide a letter detailing my wife's return to work date, hours, and hourly rate to our lender (HSBC), although they will confirm the details by telephone, if we provide HSBC with a letter of authority, which we have. HSBC say this is no good, and won't chase up the required information.

Does anybody have any ideas how to break this stalemate? I work for a small company, and would have this letter in my hands moments after requesting it, so why can't this big retailer do the same?

Thrugelmir

Is this maternity leave?

samba

Yes it is.

Edit: I should add that she has in fact returned to work already (last Thursday), and will get her next payslip in a couple of days.

We wouldn't have deliberately applied for a mortgage before she had gone back to work except that the vendor decided to accept our offer 3 months after they had turned it down. It also means we are struggling to sell our house at the worst time of year.

ACG

Ask them if they will be ok with the net payslip instead?

kingstreet

So you've applied for a mortgage on a property when you don't have a buyer for your own?

Why have you done this?

Usual advice is to wait for a buyer before offering to ensure you are in a position to proceed, then wait for the chain to form before you start spending money.

The return to work letter should have been provided by the employer prior to her return to work, confirming the return date and hours/salary. AFAIK it's now a legal requirement?

samba

kingstreet wrote: »

So you've applied for a mortgage on a property when you don't have a buyer for your own?

Why have you done this?

Usual advice is to wait for a buyer before offering to ensure you are in a position to proceed, then wait for the chain to form before you start spending money.

The return to work letter should have been provided by the employer prior to her return to work, confirming the return date and hours/salary. AFAIK it's now a legal requirement?

I know it isn't the normal thing to do, but we made a speculative offer on a house back in June and got rejected, so thought nothing more of it until the vendor came back to us at the beginning of November saying they would accept it if we were still interested.

So I went through the online application at HSBC to get a decision in principle to see how much they would lend, and then the following week they called me to arrange a telephone interview with a mortgage adviser. During that call I did make it clear to the mortgage adviser exactly what our situation was and asked her if it was too early but she said no they could go through the application and get it all set up ready for when it is needed. We haven't paid a penny yet, and won't until we have a buyer.

Don't know about it being a legal requirement, but my wife did not get such a letter. However, she has spoken to HR this morning and they now say she can send the HSBC letter to them with a letter of consent and they will provide the information directly to HSBC in written form. It seems like all things these days it depends who you speak to and when, as last week we called HSBC and they said the letter of authority would be fine, yet this week they said it wasn't.

Getting some interest in the house, but no offers yet and I'm finding I'm not giving my two young daughters enough attention at what is for them a magical time of year, so I'm wondering whether to pull it off the market until the new year?

Pete9501

We have said before, Xmas is an ideal time to advertise a property for sale. Lots of folk at home bored stiff so turn to the internet to search for houses. You only need one buyer :beer:

samba

I'm just gonna leave it on. This whole Christmas slowdown thing is a bit over-exaggerated when you look at the numbers: http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/indices-land-registry-national-monthly.php