Platform Mortgage

GabiJ27

Hey, 

Thought I’d share my recent experience: 

Full application - 23rd March

Underwriter picked up my file & queried things on my bank statements - 31st March

Mortgage offer (via email) - 12th April 

Valuation completed at some point in between all of this, but not entirely sure the date. 

pearljam1988

Rob_Lu_23 said:

Hi Frustrated porting customer with Platform here! Just wondered if anyone has any experience with current wait times from application being approved to offer documents being sent? We had a text on 18th March saying our application was approved and still don't have the documents! Every time I phone they say we'll have it by X date, and that comes and goes and I call again and they move the date and I'm just becoming very frustrated as its holding our entire chain up! Has anyone had any recent experience with this? Thanks. 

Afraid i cant help on wait times as your further along than me, but can i ask when you sent in your application forms... how long from applying before you heard it was approved... even if you havent received the paperwork yet?

Cheers

megan929

GabiJ27 said:

Hey, 

Thought I’d share my recent experience: 

Full application - 23rd March

Underwriter picked up my file & queried things on my bank statements - 31st March

Mortgage offer (via email) - 12th April 

Valuation completed at some point in between all of this, but not entirely sure the date. 

Was that a new application or porting?

megan929

Has anyone managed to get an update from platform during their wait? I called 2 weeks ago and was told we wouldn’t find anything out anything until the offer was made. They received our application for porting and extra borrowing on the 11th March. Thanks

Slappermum

There's slow, there's glacial and then there's Platform. Our application for remortgaging with them was submitted in the first week of March. Valuation was booked for 18/03. We heard from the broker that the offer was issued yesterday and that it should arrive by post. I'll believe it when I see it. We're a super simple case - double income, no children, well within affordability, no debt to speak of, no missed payments ever. Can't imagine what it's like if you actually have to go back and forth with additional questions.

[Deleted User]

Slappermum said:

There's slow, there's glacial and then there's Platform. Our application for remortgaging with them was submitted in the first week of March. Valuation was booked for 18/03. We heard from the broker that the offer was issued yesterday and that it should arrive by post. I'll believe it when I see it. We're a super simple case - double income, no children, well within affordability, no debt to speak of, no missed payments ever. Can't imagine what it's like if you actually have to go back and forth with additional questions.

Indeed. I was an FTB last year, it took me approximately three months for me to go from application to offer, with several (dumb) questions asked about various bits and bobs, each time it took them 3-10 business days to respond to the question. 

GabiJ27

megan929 said:

GabiJ27 said:

Hey, 

Thought I’d share my recent experience: 

Full application - 23rd March

Underwriter picked up my file & queried things on my bank statements - 31st March

Mortgage offer (via email) - 12th April 

Valuation completed at some point in between all of this, but not entirely sure the date. 

Was that a new application or porting?

New application 🙂

Julia28

Hi everyone, just wanted to share my experience of being an existing customer with Platform and PORTING with them, hope this is helpful.

I am writing this review to hopefully prevent other people going through the severe stress and anxiety myself and my partner experienced for months and months with Platform mortgage. All we wanted to do was to Port our mortgage-simply add on a higher amount to our existing mortgage so we could purchase a bigger property. The first time I approached Platform about this, they said we will have to book a call with you initially to discuss your porting package and then another call to do affordability assessment then another call to do further checks, then we will send out your application form. I thought this was fair enough although did seem to be a lot of calls... what I did not think was fair was it took weeks of waiting between the calls, had to wait 3 weeks for the first call, then another 3-4 weeks and then as soon we sent our application back, we were told it was probably going to take between 10-12 weeks before they can approve our applications?! I don't know about you but I think this is absolutely ridiculous, we were a simple application, no credit cards, no previous financial problems, always been loyal customers but no I was told firmly it would be this long! As you can probably understand I became very stressed with the length of time everything was taking. 

 

One of the things which I need to make other potential customers aware of is that when I rang Platform to pay for our valuation fee in early December and I confirmed with the guy that payment had gone through, I then asked him when I could expect an update and he said, its hard to say, our current waiting time is 10-12 weeks (is this professional? I don't think so!) I then ring up early January (around 4 weeks after paying our valuation fee) I was expecting to be told that the valuation had at least been booked and I was told "no we haven't booked it as you didn't instruct us to"!  I don't know if you agree but I think this is absolutely awful and unprofessional service, I said to them I payed for the valuation over 4 weeks ago and confirmed with the guy that payment had gone through so how you can say I have not instructed it? their response was "we are sorry but we will get it booked in, I said when can I expect it to be booked in and they said end of February/mid March"! Again another example of awful service.

 

Another awful part of our experience was that every person in the customer service team were unprofessional and  stressed with me on the phone- I was simply asking for an update as we were in a chain and our buyer was understandably concerned that things were slow our end. The customer service team would respond to me,"I don't know I don't have access to any updates on your application" I then asked "can you I speak to someone who does then please" and the response I got was "sorry no one in the application team is available to speak to you but I can ask them to call you back within 5 working days". At this point my stress levels were understandably very high as I was waiting around a hour on the phone and not getting any answers or updates.

 

Platform mortgages also do not have an email system so the only way to contact is to them is via their contact number- only available 9-5 on weekdays so that's not ideal when you work full time. It would have been a lot easier if they could set up an email so you don't spend hours of time waiting on the phone. They do have a fax machine facility (although I don't think anyone is benefitting from this!)

 

When you ring up for an update and get a stressed response, it really makes you question that you're going to have find another lender as you're just wasting your time and energy. I am not one to complain but I was shocked by the unprofessionalism and complete lack of empathy from Platform and unfortunately it seems to be that so many of their existing customers trying to Port their mortgage are having the same awful experience and severely long waiting times- do you think this is fair? I certainly do not. Another issue is their new customers seem to be prioritised- so many reviews from new customers are saying they've had their applications approved within 2-3 weeks, some 4 weeks so that's a big difference between the long wait times for the customers trying to port. Its nice for the new customers but makes all of us existing customers even more stressed and anxious as they are simply not treating us fairly and are prioritising new customers.

 

I'm sure you can't blame me and my partner for putting a complaint in about all our big disappointment with Platform, on top of everything else, we had to ring every day to eventually be told the outcome of our valuation- we were very bluntly told by a manager that they were not accepting our valuation (again lack of professionalism) so we put our complaint in and it took them about 8 weeks to respond (a long time for them in my opinion) so I was hoping they would make an effort to validate us and apologise..  so we got an apology when their response eventually arrived, but that was the only positive comment as then they said we have been professional throughout always updated you and have provided high levels of service. When I read that I was shocked, firstly their have been so many instances where the team have not been not professional and worst of all your incapable of acknowledging the complete lack of empathy and support for the severe stress, anxiety and also exhaustion I was suffering with.

 

Just writing all this out is exhausting and I feel stressed just thinking about the awful service but if this helps others and prevents another person's mental health suffering then that's one positive from me taking the time to write this.

 

Lastly, one final point to make is after we decided to leave platform as we decided to go for a different house and we we decided to protect our mental health and look at another lender, I have since contacted platform to ask them about their reasoning behind their response to our complaint and again experience further disappointing customer service (although I wasn't surprised by this). I rang last Thursday 6th May asking to speak to someone in the complaints team and was told "sorry theirs no one available, but I can ask them to ring you back in the next 5 working days", I said okay can someone me next Thursday (today 13th May) and I was told "yes that's no problem" and surprise surprise I have had my phone switched on with me all day and no phone call has come through. So now I am wondering is there much point me ringing up platform asking to speak to the complaints team? I'm thinking it would be a waste of my time as I won't get through and they won't ring me back, so I decided it would be a better use of my time to write this review out to help others be aware of the awful service with Platform and encourage them to please go with a lender that actually cares about their customer's mental health and is much more realistic in their application approval times.

 

Please do not make the same mistake me and my partner did, I strongly advise you to choose a lender with good reviews and quality service because if you choose to be with platform particularly for porting you will very likely end up severely disappointed and physically and mentally unwell.

 

dcwales

For any new customers, a quick timeline as I found this thread quite helpful.
Broker applied on 27th April - Agreement in Principle 
Queries raised by Platform and Valuation booked on 6th May (Working Day 6)
Offer agreed and posted out today - 13th May (Working Day 11). 
So pretty much 2 weeks from application to offer. Was relatively straight forward application.

Julia28

dcwales said:

For any new customers, a quick timeline as I found this thread quite helpful.
Broker applied on 27th April - Agreement in Principle 
Queries raised by Platform and Valuation booked on 6th May (Working Day 6)
Offer agreed and posted out today - 13th May (Working Day 11). 
So pretty much 2 weeks from application to offer. Was relatively straight forward application.

That's great, pleased for you. Just a shame that Platform can't provide the same service for existing customer's who are trying to Port.