Halifax Mortgage Recommendation - confusing language

daisyfrau

Hi, I just went through what we were told would be the mortgage application phone call when we booked the appt, and it's turned out to be a 'mortgage recommendation' interview instead! At the end (2.5h later) the young man recommended we take the same product we had wanted to apply for in the first place, sent us a key facts illustration by email and post, and has booked us in for a 'mortgage application' phone call with himself this afternoon.

I'm pleased they recommended they same product, but honestly 2.5h and we still haven't submitted an application? My partner is at home today as am I, so is available to do the second phone call with me this afternoon, but what if either one of us had been at work and had just taken the morning off for the original appt?

The other confusing thing is that the kfi looks very similar to the ones they issued in the past AFTER they made you an offer, although they state it is not a formal mortgage offer. I understand the rationale of providing you with more information prior to your committing, but reading it makes you half think you have the offer already because they use terms like 'when...' And 'what you will need to pay each month' etc instead of 'if....' And 'what you would need to pay...' etc.

Anyone else found the recent changes irritating?

Mortgage_Mark_2

Would have been far easier to use a broker.

daisyfrau

I agree, but our broker said he was swamped until the end of this week, and our vendor wanted things to move as quickly as possible (there's no chain). Our broker recommended we go to Halifax directly and if things were looking tricky to come back to him at the end of this week. (We had already got a decision in principle based on my income alone from them directly, but as my hubby is self-employed we wanted to count, we thought a broker is best.)

As it turns out they added my hubby's income but this process is confusing.

Anyway, anything helpful, anyone?

Contemptuous

If you've spent that long on the phone, it sounds like the application has been done. The next call is probably to check you're happy to proceed on the basis of the KFI, at which point they would look at booking the valuation etc. and requesting things like payslips.

ACG

KFI and mortgage offers are very similar.
KFI is NOT a Mortgage offer and is more like a quote/a breakdown of what the mortgage will be.

It does not surprise me you took that long to decide on a product with the bloke on the phone. I used to work for a different lender and they are scared people will make complaints about recommending the wrong product that much that they go too far in the wrong direction. Its funny when brokers can research the market in less time than it takes them for their own products.

daisyfrau

Just for anyone else's information:
The second phone call consisted of him taking down the property details, taking money for valuation & product fee, instructing valuation, and telling us how to submit our identity and income verification documents.

I asked when they would do the hard credit search etc, and he said he had already done that during the first phone call prior to issuing the recommended product's kfi (!) . I asked how long till we heard back and they said they couldn't say etc (fair enough). I asked realistically what could cause the application to be declined at this stage, and he said 'well it's been approved pending valuation, and identity and income verification'. I didnt understand what that meant exactly (what does 'approved' actually mean in this situation, and he said he was yet to send our file to the underwriters)) and I asked 'how do we hear back regarding the outcome of the valuation & verification process etc, is it a phone call or do we just get the offer in the post', he said "you'll hear about your mortgage offer from your solicitor at completion, and we'll post it also". I tried to explain that wasn't quite how things worked - or at least he wasn't using the terms in the correct/standard way, he really had no clue as to the house-buying process - but he kept repeating that. I gave up - obviously they will write to us so I'm guessing we just wait for that offer letter, and in the meantime I will call the general number periodically and ask for updates on my file.

I did the feedback survey after the call and highlighted that whilst the person was friendly enough, he did not seem to understand the basic house-buying process completely, and didn't seem to understand what I was asking at times.

If anyone has had any recent experiences with telephone mortgages with Halifax in the past few months, I would love to hear from you! Seemed to have a 22 year old reading from a script and with very basic training - I shudder to think that such an important decision could have been left to their interpretation of a number of fill-in boxes, and then their clicking a button on a computer to see what number came out.

In the end, pit seems there's nothing for us to do but wait and see what happens, I suppose.

daisyfrau

Thanks ACG. That's helpful - I wasn't aware of the similarities and differences between offer and kfi! We had had a mortgage offer from Halifax in November (chain fell through in March) and we had only got a kfi when the actual mortgage offer came that time. We had also used our broker then, so we hadn't had to do the long phone call, etc, etc! But they did also say they had only introduced the advising step in December, so even if we had applied directly back then, it would probably have been different anyway...

daisyfrau

Is it reasonable for us to assume that assuming the valuation matches the offer price and assuming that they are happy our verification documents match the details they took down today, we will get the mortgage offer?

I guess I'm asking if there are further hurdles the mortgage application could fail on at this point, other than the ones I've listed here?