Mortgage broker - ask me anything

kingstreet

waingels said:

I have a mortgage offer@2.75% (expires Feb 2023) with Natwest.
My current mortgage fixed period ends Nov 30th 2022, I planned to re-mortgage in December to avoid the early repayment charge. 
I understand offers can be withdrawn at any time, is this something banks may look at doing if we see a sharp BOE hike in early November (expected 1-1.5%)?

Lenders have to have a good reason such as fraud. Formal mortgage offers won't be withdrawn due to market rate movements.

boywizzard

we have a fixed rate at 1.59% that is due to run until April 2024. do you think its worth looking into a longer fixed rate at circa 5% to tie in a rate now, or should we sit tight on a favourable rate and risk it getting even worse in the the next year? 

bubblesch

Would you recommend a first time buyer getting onto the market with the current cost of living and so many mortgage products not currently being available?

K_S

bubblesch said:

Would you recommend a first time buyer getting onto the market with the current cost of living and so many mortgage products not currently being available?

@bubblesch It's not really a question that I (or any mortgage broker) would be able to answer tbh.

It depends on your individual circumstances, attitude to risk, how much you are (or are not) stretching yourself affordability wise,  and a whole set of unknowns - trajectory of house prices, interest rate movements, inflation going up/down, etc.

Among my FTB clients who were in the market, some have decided to pause for a while, others are pressing on as normal, yet others have reduced their budget, etc.

tripled

Camboudica said:

The crusade continues. My timeline to date:

August - AIP Confirmed 
08/09 - Application Submitted
15/09 - Further Documents Requested
21/09 - Further Documents Requested 
28/09 - Case moved to senior underwriter - "no more documents required"
30/09 - Further Documents Requested 

Not sure my mental health can take another couple of weeks waiting - would you expect the lender hours go into this application it would have been declined by now if it was going to be? 

Thoughts very welcome welcomed. 

I feel you. My partner is self-employed and our timeline is very similar to yours -

 August - AIP confirmed

05/09 - Full application submitted (or so we thought)

05/09 - Hard search appears on our credit files

12/09 - Further document submitted that our broker didn't initially tell us we needed! (had to scramble to ask Accountant for it)

16/09 - Further documents requested from my partner re his business (submitted 20th Sep)

We don't have access to the NatWest timeline, but somewhere between the Application being submitted and the 'further document request' (5-16th Sep) they did a desktop valuation which apparently came back fine.

Now the broker has said it's with the underwriters and we won't hear back for 15 working days from the date we submitted the last docs (20th) and i'm slowly going out of my tiny little mind.

I'm annoyed about the additional documents we had to provide too, as some of them were provided to the broker months ago and I assumed he'd taken copies at the time, but apparently not. I've also since spoken to someone in the industry who told me the information we were later asked to provide are standard documents for self-employed applicants, that our broker SHOULD have known would be needed from the outset and therefore told us to have prepared to submit along with the initial application. So, I feel he’s wasted precious time by not ensuring we had all the correct information to begin with.

This whole process is stressful enough without it being dragged out because your broker ‘forgot’ to ask you for certain documents.

Our remortgage to Halifax is also going pretty slowly. Like you, our broker had documents that they didn't submit to the lender, which has caused delays, further compounded as my contract then expired and was rejected (even though the broker explicitly stated that Halifax would accept it before we went ahead with the application). We very much regret using L&C. They also offered us supposedly fixed fee conveyancing of £300, which we subsequently binned off after the firm they referred us to progressively added additional costs to what was now being called an estimate (digital journey fee, bank transfer fee, id verification fee, etc.) and ignored emails challenging them.

18/8 - Application submitted to Halifax and some of the requested documentation provided to L&C.
18/8 - Credit search by Halifax
19/8 - Documentation sent to Halifax.
26/8 - Outstanding documents obtained from accountants and submitted to L&C.
30/8 - Outstanding documents submitted to Halifax.
9/9 - Further documents requested.
12/9 - Following some confusion as to exactly what was needed, it's established that it's a copy of my contract, which L&C were given on 18/8. Submitted to lender.
22/9 - L&C advise that Halifax have rejected my contract as it expired on 16/9. I ask them to try and resolve the problem, given their previous advice that Halifax would accept it.
26/9 - New contract agreed. Submitted to L&C that day.
27/9 - L&C submit the new contract to Halifax. There's no update on what (if anything) they were doing to resolve the problem.

Giggidy

Our broker resubmitted our formal offer to Natwest to reflect a reduction we received. I know they are only pulling mortgage products, but still feel a tad nervous about them looking at our offer again, even for just a simple revision. 

How long is Natwest taking at the moment to amend offers for price reductions? Our broker said 7 days, but we did ask if they could ask for it to be expedited (fat chance I know but no harm in asking) We have a buyer that is losing their mind wanting to exchange as they are effectively homeless, so we are really hoping they don't take as long as 7 whole days. 

K_S

Giggidy said:

Our broker resubmitted our formal offer to Natwest to reflect a reduction we received. I know they are only pulling mortgage products, but still feel a tad nervous about them looking at our offer again, even for just a simple revision. 

How long is Natwest taking at the moment to amend offers for price reductions? Our broker said 7 days, but we did ask if they could ask for it to be expedited (fat chance I know but no harm in asking) We have a buyer that is losing their mind wanting to exchange as they are effectively homeless, so we are really hoping they don't take as long as 7 whole days. 

@giggidy Nothing to worry about, they'll just reissue the offer (with the same product/rate) if needed. I haven't done any post-offer property changes recently with NatWest so couldn't tell how long it takes on average. If I remember correctly, it was probably a few days, but that was a couple of months ago.

Camboudica

@tripled, it's just so stressful isn't it. Our broker works for a local firm, and he came highly recommended from friends. If you look up the firm on trustpilot they've got great reviews, some even with him mentioned, but for us personally he's been lacking. He always seems to be on holiday whenever we need anything done, he's not been very clear with regards to the paperwork needed causing confusion and unnecessary delays, and he's not the best at keeping us updated. It's hard enough without the people who are supposed to be helping you being more of a hindrance.

I hope you get a positive response very soon so you're not hanging in limbo for long. 

Wantabeautifulhouse

We have a mortgage offer with Natwest which expires in February.

My wife's income was used when applying for the mortgage. 

We received the news that my wife's employer is giving notice of redundancy and that my wife's position is at risk. She will only know in 30 days if her position is being made redundant after the consulting period. 

We were hoping to exchange and complete in October.  Everything is ready to go.

Extremely bad timing!

Do we have to inform Natwest even though she still has her job? 

At this stage, my wife still has her job and she may keep it. We are just in Limbo for the next 30 days.

We have to exchange and complete in Oct or we will lose the house. 

We are in an extremely good financial position and don't need her job to pay the mortgage.

Kayleighwhiteley

K_S said:

@Kayleighwhiteley I haven't heard of any mainstream lender offers being withdrawn. If that was happening, I'd certainly have heard of it in industry forums as it would have a huge impact on brokers.

Kayleighwhiteley said:

Hi, 
We have a mortgage offer in place. 3.5%...we are FTB using help to buy. I've just come across something that has worried me. Apparently banks pulling mortgage offers then giving a higher interest rate. We exchanged contracts a week ago and are due to complete next month. Can they still pull our offer? We can't manage on a higher interest rate. We have given notice to move from the house we are in. I'm very worried. 

Thank you 😊 I saw it on tiktok and a few were commenting saying they got given an offer then the banks was withdrawing it and giving them another at a higher interest rate. Wasn't sure how true it was... And also, I'm guessing they hadn't signed any contracts etc. Thanks again.