Mortgage broker - ask me anything

K_S

Giggidy said:

Our broker resubmitted our mortgage offer to Natwest to reflect the £5k reduction we agreed with the vendor, last Friday. We were told we should hear back by latest today, I chased it up late afternoon and was told it will now take 12 working days. This is really concerning for what we though is just a simple case of updating the paperwork after a few simple checks. The call agent said that particular underwriting team was taking 12 days, which again raised alarm bells because it seems to have been passed to another team. I am more worried than ever now Natwest is going to decide to withdraw the offer. If we knew it would take this long and potentially affect our ability to get the mortgage we would have just swallowed the £5k repairs. Is it too late to withdraw it, are we over thinking things, which can't help doing with how volatile the market is daily 

@giggidy With everything going on, I can fully understand your worries, but honestly you're worrying unnecessarily. It'll take time as NatWest is completely slammed and have a huge backlog. These requests will always go to an underwriter, there's nothing unusual about that.

nat_

Hi, we are currently in the underwriting process with NatWest but they have queried small payments on our bank statements. They questioned a £10 and £15 one on mine (it was from my mum that had the description of "loan" - it was for lunches and days out that I had paid for). And for my husband it was because there was no description on a payment he'd made for £9 to a friend's account. We are borrowing at the top end of our budget. I'm concerned they are questioning small payments for an excuse to reject us on affordability. Am I being paranoid?! 

K_S

nat_ said:

Hi, we are currently in the underwriting process with NatWest but they have queried small payments on our bank statements. They questioned a £10 and £15 one on mine (it was from my mum that had the description of "loan" - it was for lunches and days out that I had paid for). And for my husband it was because there was no description on a payment he'd made for £9 to a friend's account. We are borrowing at the top end of our budget. I'm concerned they are questioning small payments for an excuse to reject us on affordability. Am I being paranoid?! 

@nat_ As you are maximising borrowing, it's not unusual for the underwriter to query transactions marked as a 'loan' or indeed anything that appears like a commitment.

As long as you have a reasonable and plausible explanation for the queries, there's nothing to worry about by itself. A NatWest underwriter is small cog in an enormous organisation, they're not looking for any reason to reject you unfairly.

Ballymoney

Having just remortgaged how soon would you expect the balance on the old mortgage to show as £0? It’s been 4 days since completion but my old mortgage balance in the HSBC online banking is unchanged. I won’t be paying interest on this will I?

K_S

Ballymoney said:

Having just remortgaged how soon would you expect the balance on the old mortgage to show as £0? It’s been 4 days since completion but my old mortgage balance in the HSBC online banking is unchanged. I won’t be paying interest on this will I?

@ballymoney For my personal mortgage, I re-mortgaged away from Halifax this Monday (3rd) and the account showed as normal until yesterday, it's gone this morning. As long as you have got confirmation from the conveyancer that the remortgage has indeed completed, I don't think there's anything to worry about as such.

Ballymoney

K_S said:

@ballymoney For my personal mortgage, I re-mortgaged away from Halifax this Monday (3rd) and the account showed as normal until yesterday, it's gone this morning. As long as you have got confirmation from the conveyancer that the remortgage has indeed completed, I don't think there's anything to worry about as such.

Thank you. Yes, got confirmation of completion and online banking all set up with new lender (Lloyds) with confirmed date of first payment. 

I’m waiting for a refund on a payment taken by old lender on 01/10 which was outside of the redemption amount so hopefully it’ll be settled in next few days.

vlou

I currently have a mortgage offer that's due to expire on the 30th Nov and I'm hoping to complete on a new build on the 11th Nov. There have been several delays thus far and the last email from the developers state that they're awaiting confirmation from builders but the date given isn't "set in stone" currently.

My current offer is a fixed 5 year at 2.68%, what's the likely hood of Halifax offering to extend this an extra 30 days? I applied through their own mortgage advisor and not a broker.

I've searched the forum and I can find old posts where people have succeeded and had offers extended with Halifax an additional month but it's also regularly stated that they do not do this and the interest rate will be refreshed.

What are my chances at getting it extended? I've sent my adviser an email asking if it's possible and am hoping for a response over the next few days. Should I await their response (as they might no exactly what to say to proceed) or contact Halifax direct?

The only thing that gave me a little bit of hope is I tried to get a new offer through a broker yesterday (5.15% Fixed 5 Year) and explained my current situation, they said I shouldn't have an issue getting the extension but I don't know how worried I need to be.

Nels77

Hi, just trying to find out what's a realistic timeline from mortgage application to offer at the moment. I'm in the middle of a short chain and my buyers submitted their application via a broker approx 8 weeks ago and are still waiting on an offer. Is this reasonable and in line with general timescales at the moment or should I be concerned? EA won't tell me much more than their broker is chasing the lender and everything is taking a long time at the moment. I don't know which lender it is ( I have asked a few times) Valuation was done mid August. Everything else is done and ready to exchange. Appreciate you can't answer on any specifics but just looking for some reassurance that applications can just take a while at the moment, my offer came through in 24 hrs so theirs feels extreme in comparison! Thanks 

K_S

vlou said:

I currently have a mortgage offer that's due to expire on the 30th Nov and I'm hoping to complete on a new build on the 11th Nov. There have been several delays thus far and the last email from the developers state that they're awaiting confirmation from builders but the date given isn't "set in stone" currently.

My current offer is a fixed 5 year at 2.68%, what's the likely hood of Halifax offering to extend this an extra 30 days? I applied through their own mortgage advisor and not a broker.

I've searched the forum and I can find old posts where people have succeeded and had offers extended with Halifax an additional month but it's also regularly stated that they do not do this and the interest rate will be refreshed.

What are my chances at getting it extended? I've sent my adviser an email asking if it's possible and am hoping for a response over the next few days. Should I await their response (as they might no exactly what to say to proceed) or contact Halifax direct?

The only thing that gave me a little bit of hope is I tried to get a new offer through a broker yesterday (5.15% Fixed 5 Year) and explained my current situation, they said I shouldn't have an issue getting the extension but I don't know how worried I need to be.

@vlou Halifax new-build products rarely need an extension as they're valid for around 12 months. For example if you applied for a Halifax new-build mortgage today for the right product, it would be valid to 30/09/2023. When did you apply for the mortgage?

Generally speaking, Halifax products have a set 'complete-by' date (which looks like it's 30/11/2022 in your case) and to extend the offer usually requires having to select a current product/rate.

K_S

Nels77 said:

Hi, just trying to find out what's a realistic timeline from mortgage application to offer at the moment. I'm in the middle of a short chain and my buyers submitted their application via a broker approx 8 weeks ago and are still waiting on an offer. Is this reasonable and in line with general timescales at the moment or should I be concerned? EA won't tell me much more than their broker is chasing the lender and everything is taking a long time at the moment. I don't know which lender it is ( I have asked a few times) Valuation was done mid August. Everything else is done and ready to exchange. Appreciate you can't answer on any specifics but just looking for some reassurance that applications can just take a while at the moment, my offer came through in 24 hrs so theirs feels extreme in comparison! Thanks 

@nels77 There are plenty of reasons why applications can indeed take the time indicated in your post, with quite a few mainstream lenders. 

For example NatWest is current taking 15 working days to pick up new applications for initial assessment, 15 working days to then get it to an underwriter (if needed) and 10 working days to pick up responses to queries raised. So if you have the bad luck to get a fresh underwriter that raises two queries one after the other, that adds at least 20 working days to the timelines.