Mortgage broker - ask me anything

highlandlife

K_S said:

@Highlandlife I can't speaking for your specific case, but generally speaking - if one has a personal loan for £500/month with 3 years remaining and change it to £250/month with 6 years remaining, it may have a positive impact on affordability and is unlikely to have an adverse impact on other areas of the application (eg: lender 'credit-scoring').

Thanks it would be extending the terms of the £179 loan to 5 years but clearing the £4500 credit card

TechM89

Hi,

I wrote recently regarding my parents tying to get a Platform mortgage. So after 6 long weeks of waiting for a decision they got declined, their broker is contacting Platform today to find out why.

They are looking at Halifax as they also got a DIP from them, so wondering if anyone knew their turnaround times? I assume it will need underwriting as parents are retried and dad does contracting work too.

Thank you!

K_S

@techm89 Sorry to hear that. Among mainstream lenders Halifax are the quickest, 1-3 days turnaround time for picking up and queries for my recent apps.

However I would caution against rushing into it before understanding why exactly Platform declined it as there may be some carry over.

I don't know the case specifics so this might not be relevant, but generally speaking Halifax isn't the best for lending beyond 70, as they will typically need evidence of pension income sufficiently large enough to meet affordability for the required loan size.

TechM89 said:

Hi,

I wrote recently regarding my parents tying to get a Platform mortgage. So after 6 long weeks of waiting for a decision they got declined, their broker is contacting Platform today to find out why.

They are looking at Halifax as they also got a DIP from them, so wondering if anyone knew their turnaround times? I assume it will need underwriting as parents are retried and dad does contracting work too.

Thank you!

TechM89

Thank you appreciate the quick reply. 
Just difficult I guess as you get older, they are only needing £65k but their mortgage broker couldnt think of may companies that take retired customers (dad is 64, he just retired early).

K_S

@TechM89 If he's currently contracting, has a history of contracting, and in a desk based role with an intended retirement age (in contracting) up to 80, and the current income levels (contract+current pension) are sufficient to borrow 65k (as per lender calcs), I can't see it being a huge task based on the limited info.

There might be other relevant info in the background which makes this case complicated, but being 'retired' from your main career is neither here nor there when it comes to relevance for this application. I hope that makes sense.

If your broker is one of the volume ones (L&C, Habito types) I would recommend getting a second opinion from a good experienced broker, perhaps ask friends/family/colleagues for recommendations. Good luck!

TechM89 said:

Thank you appreciate the quick reply. 
Just difficult I guess as you get older, they are only needing £65k but their mortgage broker couldnt think of may companies that take retired customers (dad is 64, he just retired early).

CH156

Good morning all, so i had messaged a few days ago my broker put in a new AIP with Natwest followed by full application (our halifax one declined sadly before valuation stage), this was on 1st of June. I've now had a message from the developer to say the valuation has been booked for this Thursday, is this a positive step or just how NW do things differently to Halifax? Many thanks

K_S

@ch156 It is positive in that it's moving forward. But with most apps NatWest (like most other mainstream lenders) does the val and assessment in parallel, as you can see below for one of my in-progress cases, so in that sense it may not be positive or negative. I hope that makes sense.


Your broker should be able to get a rough idea of whether or not assessment is complete by looking at the case tracker so perhaps just drop them an email.

CH156 said:

Good morning all, so i had messaged a few days ago my broker put in a new AIP with Natwest followed by full application (our halifax one declined sadly before valuation stage), this was on 1st of June. I've now had a message from the developer to say the valuation has been booked for this Thursday, is this a positive step or just how NW do things differently to Halifax? Many thanks

CH156

K_S said:

@ch156 It is positive in that it's moving forward. But with most apps NatWest (like most other mainstream lenders) does the val and assessment in parallel, as you can see below for one of my in-progress cases, so in that sense it may not be positive or negative. I hope that makes sense.


Your broker should be able to get a rough idea of whether or not assessment is complete by looking at the case tracker so perhaps just drop them an email.

CH156 said:

Good morning all, so i had messaged a few days ago my broker put in a new AIP with Natwest followed by full application (our halifax one declined sadly before valuation stage), this was on 1st of June. I've now had a message from the developer to say the valuation has been booked for this Thursday, is this a positive step or just how NW do things differently to Halifax? Many thanks

Hi K_S, apologies in advance for the silly question but is the assessment the underwriting? What actually does underwriting include that hasn’t been picked up from the hard check? Also does the hard check check the last 6 years?

K_S

@ch156 Not a silly question at all. With respect to mainstream applications, processing/underwriting/assessment are all interchangeably used so you could say that they all refer to pretty much the same thing.

If there is full manual underwriting (not all applications will go to full underwriting, some will simply involve matching payslips to income on app for example), then that may involve a human being doing a sense check on the case, digging into details (eg: asking about reasons for historic arrears showing on the Equifax credit report, making a subjective assessment as to whether or not there is carry over to the current app), digging into internal databases older than 6 years (for example these may show RBS group related arrears which are long gone from credit reports), assessing the application details to see if they need to dig into anything, etc. I hope that makes sense.

The application and credit check (contrary to what a lot of people assume, both the soft and hard check give them the same level of detail) give them the information required for a Yes/No decision at a tick-box level and if it gets picked up for full underwriting then what is additional is a sense-check and manual review of the same information in conjunction with any packaging (documentation, notes) uploaded. 

CH156 said:

K_S said:

@ch156 It is positive in that it's moving forward. But with most apps NatWest (like most other mainstream lenders) does the val and assessment in parallel, as you can see below for one of my in-progress cases, so in that sense it may not be positive or negative. I hope that makes sense.


Your broker should be able to get a rough idea of whether or not assessment is complete by looking at the case tracker so perhaps just drop them an email.

CH156 said:

Good morning all, so i had messaged a few days ago my broker put in a new AIP with Natwest followed by full application (our halifax one declined sadly before valuation stage), this was on 1st of June. I've now had a message from the developer to say the valuation has been booked for this Thursday, is this a positive step or just how NW do things differently to Halifax? Many thanks

Hi K_S, apologies in advance for the silly question but is the assessment the underwriting? What actually does underwriting include that hasn’t been picked up from the hard check? Also does the hard check check the last 6 years?

TechM89

K_S said:

@TechM89 If he's currently contracting, has a history of contracting, and in a desk based role with an intended retirement age (in contracting) up to 80, and the current income levels (contract+current pension) are sufficient to borrow 65k (as per lender calcs), I can't see it being a huge task based on the limited info.

There might be other relevant info in the background which makes this case complicated, but being 'retired' from your main career is neither here nor there when it comes to relevance for this application. I hope that makes sense.

If your broker is one of the volume ones (L&C, Habito types) I would recommend getting a second opinion from a good experienced broker, perhaps ask friends/family/colleagues for recommendations. Good luck!

TechM89 said:

Thank you appreciate the quick reply. 
Just difficult I guess as you get older, they are only needing £65k but their mortgage broker couldnt think of may companies that take retired customers (dad is 64, he just retired early).

Yes they used L&C, think they saw it recommended on one of the articles on this website.