Gatehouse Bank HPP?

Alisha__

stj1995 said:

Alisha__ said:

Hi Amy,
Our progress with gate house bank for offer of finance went according to the given timeline i.e. 6 weeks from submitting application to receiving the offer. This could take a week or two less if it was not summer holiday season when we applied and people providing job references etc. were not on holidays when contacted.
We did not use a broker and applied directly to the bank. The bank's mortgage adviser dealing with our application was Robert Siddall. He was very helpful and responded quickly to my emails (I could never get hold of him on telephone). The solicitor acting on behalf of the bank have also been efficient so far.

Unfortunately, it is our solicitor who has been the most inefficient and proving to be a bottleneck in the process. We aimed to complete by the end of September and tried to get conveyancing and mortgage application done in parallel. But I did not believe in chasing the solicitor daily and chivvy them. It has turned out to be my biggest mistake and due to solicitor NOT doing anything unless repeatedly contacted, we are still waiting to receive contract papers from him. I would never recommend the solicitors I have used.

Other information related to our circumstances:
My husband and I applied as joint applicants. We applied for 80% LTV
Both work full time with combined gross annual income just over 100K
I use a credit card for payments on my regular business trips overseas and always pay in full. We do not have any other credit commitments.
We do not have any adverse credit history. Our credit scores are very good. However, I am not even sure if the bank used scores like those on Experian.

Additional documents/information asked during application were related to clarifications for transactions in and out of our bank accounts. But we had satisfactory proofs and legitimate reasons for all the incoming and out goings and we always dealt with and responded to the requests quickly.
Since I was on maternity leave at the time of application, my employer was also contacted for job reference before valuation survey was booked by the bank.

Best of luck with your application. Whether you choose Gatehouse or not, my two cents would be to regularly chase both the advisor and the solicitor for updates.

Hi Alisha,

just wondering if things are still (hopefully) going smoothly one year in?

my husband and I couldn’t go for al rayan as we’re self employed and they wanted two years accounts.  Gatehouse is our only option. I’m just reading the (still sparse) reviews and getting a little put off. We’re first time buyers so really have no clue what to expect from a mortgage provider. 

Hi stj1995,
We exchanged and completed in November.  I would say, Gatehouse team was fantastic. They helped to accelerate things up for us when our solicitors were just dragging it. So far, our experience with Gatehouse has been really good and I hope it stays like that in the future too. 
Best of luck with your purchase.

r9230245

Hi, just messaging to see if anyone has had any further experiences to share about taking HPP out with Gatehouse. 

So far my timeline is 
7/4 submitted formal application to bank
19/4 application forwarded to underwriters 
4/5 underwriters came back with questions 
5/5 our answers and supporting docs forwarded again to underwriters 
11/5 still not heard back from underwriters 

I’ve read some reviews which are a little unsettling, we have been given a 5 working day SLA for underwriters to look at our further info and answers but feeling very anxious that they’ll come back with more questions and then give us another 5 days SLA! 

Already been 5 weeks since submitting our application and a valuation hasn’t been booked yet, which the estate agents have chased about 3 times now!! 

evileye

r9230245 said:

Hi, just messaging to see if anyone has had any further experiences to share about taking HPP out with Gatehouse. 

So far my timeline is 
7/4 submitted formal application to bank
19/4 application forwarded to underwriters 
4/5 underwriters came back with questions 
5/5 our answers and supporting docs forwarded again to underwriters 
11/5 still not heard back from underwriters 

I’ve read some reviews which are a little unsettling, we have been given a 5 working day SLA for underwriters to look at our further info and answers but feeling very anxious that they’ll come back with more questions and then give us another 5 days SLA! 

Already been 5 weeks since submitting our application and a valuation hasn’t been booked yet, which the estate agents have chased about 3 times now!! 

Hi, just wondering whether you HPP was approved? I have also made an HPP applicaton to Gatehouse and getting a bit anxious due to the slow process. My timeline:

11/05: Instructed broker to initiate the process
24/05: Application submitted. Not sure why the brokers took that long, I provided all the documents within a day when asked
26/05: Initial assessment done by the case manager and passed application to KYC analyst and underwriter for review
6/06: Underwriter raised tasks, asking for some additional documents and clarification
10/06: Broker submits the additional information after reviewing
16/06: Tasks were responded to and the broker says it will take an additional 3-5 working days.

No further update since then. I thought the broker will speed up the process but in my case the broker seems to have taken additional time and I had to chase them up, not sure whether it had any effect on the bank process. Estate agent was chasing me last week about any update as they were expecting to be contacted for valuation but not sure whether it will be done even by next week.

r9230245

Hi, 

Yes after the tasks were answered the underwriters approved HPP subject to valuation 8 days later. 

Then we had the valuation a week later and our HPP was approved and mortgage offer received 2 days after the valuation. 

Hope it all goes well, it’s extremely anxious times until you hear back but it will hopefully go through in the end.