Application Delay Frustration!!!!

daisyfrau

Apologies in advance for the vent. I am at a loss as to whether there is anything I can do to push things along.

End March: House purchase fell through just before exchange. (Held mortgage offer from Halifax secured by a broker)
26 April: New DIP Halifax (applied directly as broker could not fit us in for a few weeks (business apparently THAT good, lol!))
2nd May: Started Maternity Leave
18 May: Had baby - hurrah!!
End May: first maternity pay check: £1500 too much! Called Payroll to advise, Mr F (from payroll) v unhelpful could not work out where mistake he'd made was, threatened to just deduct excess money from next few pay checks, which would leave us with no pay/less pay for 2 months. I refused stating I wanted normal regular monthly pay checks as I should have had and I would just repay the excess in May by cheque. (As we were planning to apply for a mortgage I didn't want my already-reduced mat leave income to suddenly appear to go down to zero due to his mistake and failure to correct it the right way!)
Mid-June: decided to resume house search as our one-bed rented flat is too small to fit a cot in (baby in Moses basket)
26 June: offer accepted on 3 bed house. Vacant ppty (probate) and no chain as we are FTBs
26 June: revised DIP as now on mat leave
30 June: full application by phone. Approved subject to valuation and income verification and ID verification.
1 July: ID verification submitted in branch
7 July: Halifax contacts my employer and husbands employer for income reference
9 July: valuation and survey done. No issues.
10 July: I contact HR at work to chase whether income reference returned to Halifax: they say nothing received from Halifax
10 July: call Halifax and they say they spoke to someone at my work who confirmed receipt of my forms. Refuse to disclose who, and said the forms are being processed by my work, Halifax still awaiting their return
15 July: income reference for hubby returned by fax and received
15 July: I call Halifax: they are still awaiting my employer reference
15 July: I call my HR they insist no forms received from Halifax.
15 July: I call Halifax: they say still awaiting return of reference form by my work, but confirm it was definitely received at my work, as Halifax had spoken to someone at my work earlier that day chasing it. Still refuse to disclose who. I supplied contact details of HR stating that is who should have received forms. Halifax says they can't use that information as they must contact work directly themselves. Halifax States that valuation, ID, and husbands income reference all fine.
21 July: I call Halifax: forms still awaited from my work. They finally disclose they spoke to someone in payroll who explained he needed to contact HR in order to complete forms
21 July: After much chasing on my part I discover that Halifax forms had ended up on Mr Fs desk. >I shudder.<
21 July: called Mr F asking why the delay, he said he had had to contact HR for answers to Halifax questions on my contract as he doesn't have access to that info. He had received the info back from HR that day apparently (hmmm...), put it on the Halifax forms. He had finally completed them and faxed back an hour before my call to him. Mr. F states 'Halifax should really have contacted HR not payroll in the first place as we do not hold details of contract terms.' I agreed (but mainly because I have no confidence in Mr. F to handle my mortgage paperwork).
22 July: I call Halifax : my income reference forms received
24 July: I call Halifax: my forms were received but no action at this time as "processing staff are working on clients who are switching products. Told to try again next week.
24 July: advise EA mortgage in process, all forms received by bank. EA requests update on mortgage on Tuesday 28th please
28 July: I called Halifax. Requested urgent call back from processor. Mortgage advisor (not processor) called back at 1830h. Told processor had tried to contact Mr. F as details of my contract were not supplied on the reference forms as requested. Processor told Mr. F out of office until August 3. > I was so upset.< I explained to Halifax that payroll (Mr. F) does not hold details of my contract. HR does. Explained that if contract info is missing they need to contact HR not payroll. Provided contact details of HR again. Pointed out that HR is not on annual leave this week. Was told the info will be passed on to processor but no guarantee whether/how it will be acted upon.

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I am so frustrated and at a loss at what to do. EA asked us to advise on status of mortgage today - I only received callback from Halifax after office hours. In principle, there are no affordability issues but it seems to me:
1. Halifax stubbornly refuses to liaise with anyone other than payroll. The outstanding questions seem to do with the details of my contract terms when I return to work, which HR has, and which we described to Halifax during application. (Am returning to work full-time and my pay will have gone up).
2. Mr. F is both incompetent, and very slow.
3. Most worryingly, despite not having the details Halifax wants, and just admitting that and redirecting them to HR, Mr. F chooses to complete the paperwork himself.
4. Mr. F is away this week, to add salt to the wound.

I would very much like Mr. F out of the picture as far as the mortgage is concerned. He doesn't want to do the paperwork either. I have liaised with HR and they are very competent and quick.

I can contact HR tomorrow to advise that Halifax may contact them but do you have any advice on
1. Getting Halifax to liaise with HR instead of payroll on the missing details
2. Getting Mr. F out of the picture, as both he and I would like, without having to wait until next week. (As soon as he returns I will call him but I'm in two minds about letting him just correct his mistakes with Halifax directly, and thereby risking him taking ages to do so, and also messing it up again, and just asking him to tell Halifax to contact HR directly for the info they want).

If you have any advice - please do let me know!

Dave_Ham

It would take no more than 5 minutes to get the details required to amend the mortgage offer for the new details, surprised they would want a 2 week wait when they have done 95% of the work???


Unusual for Halifax to do employer verification on both of you..


They are unlikely to want to change the contact for the information they have requested, persist with Mr F if I were you.


The joys of dealing with the lenders directly...

daisyfrau

I agree. The first time we applied with broker we didn't have all this hassle!! We just supplied 3 months statements.

We did actually approach our broker again in June (after offer accepted) to get him to do full application, but he was STILL too busy to see us for a week! He said we should try directly and if things got difficult to come back to him. Now I really wish we had just waited a week and used the broker. Was SO worth it!!!