Porting mortgage with Platform - expected 14 week wait for mortgage offer?!

bluevelvet19

My partner and I are moving house and porting our mortgage with Platform. We have a buyer for our house and yesterday had an offer accepted on a new house. Yesterday we had a call with them and passed the affordability check, but the earliest appointment we could get for the mortgage application call was 2nd September (1 month away) and were told that we should expect to receive our offer 8-10 weeks after that date! They said they have a backlog due to the pandemic - understandable to an extent but 14 weeks for a process that usually takes about 2-3 weeks seems absolutely crazy. The sellers of the new house have told us we have to book our survey within the next two weeks or they will relist the house for sale! But we can't even book a survey until after 2nd September. Because we are porting, we have to go directly through Platform and are not allowed to use a broker, and face a £9k early repayment charge if we switch lenders. I'm at a loss what to do as this will almost certainly make our house sale fall through. Is anyone else experiencing this? I've seen a few stories but nothing this extreme. It would be good to hear stories from other lenders as the only reassurance I have is that the sellers will have to go through the same thing as us and so will be more understanding. 

haras_n0sirrah

Unfortunately as you say a broker can't help you here and that erc is eye watering

otmotm

I know - this is madness. We have our current mortgage with Platform also. We decided to take a hit on the Early Repayment Charges but our ERC are not as much as yours. When we called Platform, we were told to wait for the advisor to call back so I suppose by the time they do (been two weeks on the wait now), we would waste a lot of time every step of the way (Advisor-Application-HQ for approval). I don't think other lenders take as long as Platform from what I have seen but cannot be sure.