First Direct Mortgage Timeline on Part-Time Furlough

Elchie232

There seems to be a lot of interest for mortgage application timelines, so I thought I would share mine.  Hopefully, it will be of some use for people in a similar situation.

For some background:  My partner and I are both 25, we have a good household income.  I have a good credit history which I have been working on since I was 18.  I have manged to secure good car financing deals and top reward credit cards (amex etc.).  My partner has been working on hers since about 22.  We both have no defaults, missed payments or PDLs. 

For some context on our situation:  we were worried we were going to have to wait till the end of 2021 to apply for a mortgage, as I was on and off furlough.  However, my company put me on part-time furlough and part-time employment.  While this reduced our combined salary, it could allow banks to consider only my part-time hours when applying.

In January 2021 we went to 3 mortgage advisors who said it was impossible to get a mortgage on furlough, even after I explained I was currently on part-time furlough.  We decided to ignore this and try get an AIP with my part-time employment and my partners full-time employment (she has been working for the NHS for over 4 years).  We bank with First Direct (FD) so decided to try there first.

Timeline:
04/03/2021         AIP – this took about 1.5 hours on the phone and I could easily explain the part-time furlough situation.  We applied for an 80% LTV on a house price that is well within our budget.  We went for a 40-year term to maximise the affordability with the underwriters.

09/03/2021         Offer accepted on a property

09/03/2021         Uploaded supporting documents to FD

10/03/2021         Text saying documents were received and a call will be made within 7 days

12/03/2021         Received a call about booking a FD mortgage advisor      

14/03/2021         Mortgage advisor meeting          

14/03/2021         Mortgage application submitted – 2 year fixed without a fee (works out cheaper over the 2 years), 39 year 7 months term   
    
19/03/2021         Property valuation - this was done online (we live in Scotland, so sellers must supply a home report).  The property was undervalued by £11,100. 

21/03/2021         Updated the valuation and amended the application with FD mortgage advisor.  We decided to pay the outstanding amount rather than changing our LTV. New term 35 years 3 months

24/03/2021         Mortgage offer @ 4pm

zagubov

This is pleasing to see. I remortgaged with them a few years back and the mortgage was already with them and it seemed slow to us (as had our first mortgage with them). It was also very thorough and fair as they did start by saying no and later explained why they could change it to yes.
We had mentioned better mortgages via coventry etc. which may have helped.