Yorkshire building Society & Ipswich building society ?Anyone have experience good or bad

ian1246

Got our current (& 1st) mortgage with YBS - they were pretty good. Very competitive (& still are). They were extremely... thorough.... when it came to the bank statements and paperwork they requested during the mortgage application, often querying what seemed like small things (i.e. a historic £10 standing order my then girlfriend - now wife - had once set to one of her sisters every month for a mobile phone contract). At the time, it felt like everything was under a microscope and everything seemed to take forever.... but in hind sight, it really didn't (Offer made on the house start of September, completion start of November).

Only thing I'd mention is we brought a house which was next to a building site with planning permission. Even though the foundations of some of the new houses were laid by the time of valuation (& visible from the master bedroom, whilst there was also a planning notice attached to the lamp-post outside our house!), the valuation initially didn't pass this information onto YBS (they valued the property at or above our agreed price), so when the Solicitors planning-permission checks inevitably brought up the planning permission, YBS did mess us around/delay completion by about a week due to stating they had to go back to the valuation agent to confirm the value of the house wasn't effected by the building site/planning permission.

We used the valuation/survey provided by YBS. At the time this was frustrating since we just desperately wanted to get into the house - but in hind sight wasn't necessarily a bad thing, since by ensuring the value was correct, whilst they were protecting their own interests from paying in excess for a property, they also protected our interests by doing so.

This was in 2015. Last year (2019), I contacted them with regards to possibly moving and porting the mortgage. I had a telephone appointment with a mortgage adviser - very helpful and friendly. Overall I would recommend them - and we'd potentially stay with them when we re-mortgage later this year (their rates, whilst not quite at the top anymore, are competitive enough to make it worthwhile staying to avoid the hassle of re-mortgaging with a different company!)