Is my buyers mortgage taking too long?

Rossim1985

Hi, I'd be grateful for some advice in relation to how long is too long in terms of my buyers mortgage offer.

The people buying our property are first time buyers and we are purchasing a house that was tenanted, but the tenant has given notice, so it'll be vacant shortly (next week), so a reasonably simple two property chain.

The sale of ours was agreed on 6th March and our buyers mortgage valuation survey was done on 26th March (though only after we chased).  As of today (23rd April), nearly a month later, and 7 weeks (WEF tomorrow) after the sale was agreed, our buyers still do not have a mortgage offer.  They are using a broker and we know the lender is Digital Mortgages by Atom Bank, which is supposedly all online and efficient etc.  We're porting our existing NatWest mortgage, although there is considerable additional borrowing and we had the formal offer done within 3 weeks.

I know these are strange times in the property market and obviously I'd love to benefit from a stamp duty saving (though did factor the costs in of course).  Am I worrying too much or should I be putting on some pressure and threatening to put the property back on the market?  If not this week, when is too long, 8, 9, 10 weeks?

I'd very much appreciate peoples views.  Thank you! 

Thrugelmir

Have you asked the EA for an update as to why it's taking so long?

Redwino222

It does seem long.  My mortgage came through in less than two weeks.  My house has been sale agreed for two weeks today and my estate agent is pushing my buyer for updates on their mortgage.  No valuation has happened yet and I am getting impatient.

i would love to benefit from the stamp duty holiday, but have budgeted for a July move dat just in case,

Rossim1985

Thrugelmir said:

Have you asked the EA for an update as to why it's taking so long?

Yes, though after doing a great job selling our property, the sales progression has been woeful.  I heard nothing from them at all for the first five weeks! 

My EA forwarded an email to me from our buyers mortgage broker last week (dated 16th April) that said "As it stands, all information has been submitted to Digital Mortgages and we are just waiting for their assessment to be carried out".

The EA today has emailed saying he's chased both the broker and our actual buyer themselves for an update and will respond when he has further news. 

All of this has been by email, it's impossible to actually speak to the sales progression person, who also happens to be the MD of the business.  

I regret choosing this agent now and will use a different one (that I've used successfully in the past) if I have to remarket the property (hopefully not!    )

CLJ2986

Just from the other side, I have been waiting 2 months for my mortgage offer now. There have been issues and my application was cancelled when my broker didn't receive my documents (not sure what happened, I sent them the day they were requested but apparently they were never received.) I'm so stressed out but really relieved my sellers don't seem to have an issue... either that or the ea hasn't bothered to do anything lol as no one has chased me for an update or anything. I spoke to the ea two weeks ago off my own back to check if the valuation had been booked and they didn't say what's the hold up or anything. I'm doing everything I can to push it through though and have genuine explanations so if the sellers do get frustrated hopefully they will understand what's happened.

Thrugelmir

Rossim1985 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Have you asked the EA for an update as to why it's taking so long?

I regret choosing this agent now and will use a different one (that I've used successfully in the past) if I have to remarket the property (hopefully not!    )

Nothing the EA can do. Decision is entirely yours as to whether to relist the property. Personally I'd give an ultimatum to your potential buyers early next week if there's no constructive update. Sounds as they are stalling for time. 

Has the property valuation been performed? 

Rossim1985

CLJ2986 said:

Just from the other side, I have been waiting 2 months for my mortgage offer now. There have been issues and my application was cancelled when my broker didn't receive my documents (not sure what happened, I sent them the day they were requested but apparently they were never received.) I'm so stressed out but really relieved my sellers don't seem to have an issue... either that or the ea hasn't bothered to do anything lol as no one has chased me for an update or anything. I spoke to the ea two weeks ago off my own back to check if the valuation had been booked and they didn't say what's the hold up or anything. I'm doing everything I can to push it through though and have genuine explanations so if the sellers do get frustrated hopefully they will understand what's happened.

Thank you, this is a helpful insight from the other side! My main concern is that with no rental income coming in on the property we are buying as of next week.  The vendors of the property we're buying might get the hump if we're being slow due to our buyer in turn being slow!

Rossim1985

Thrugelmir said:

Rossim1985 said:

Thrugelmir said:

Have you asked the EA for an update as to why it's taking so long?

I regret choosing this agent now and will use a different one (that I've used successfully in the past) if I have to remarket the property (hopefully not!    )

Nothing the EA can do. Decision is entirely yours as to whether to relist the property. Personally I'd give an ultimatum to your potential buyers early next week if there's no constructive update. Sounds as they are stalling for time. 

Has the property valuation been performed? 

Thank you, that was my thoughts too really, I just wanted some opinions as to whether it was too early or not.  

The sale of our house was agreed on 6th March and our buyers mortgage valuation survey was carried out on 26th March (though only after we chased).  So in 3 days time it'll be a month since their mortgage valuation survey.

Next Friday (30th April), we'll be two weeks on from being told everything has already been submitted.  I'm thinking maybe another 7 days from that (which will be pushing 9 weeks in total) and if there is no mortgage offer by then we put it back on the market?

mattant

Mine took 8 weeks with Clydesdale last October, no issues, they were just very busy. 

Cheery_Daff

Ours took 12 weeks, I was tearing my hair out (as, I'm sure, was everyone else in the chain...). Just a small series of stupid things, but each time something else happened we had to wait several days for a response from the building society. 

One underwriter said they'd take my future pay rise into account, but the Broker 'forgot' to mention my student loan on the application, so I had to pay that off to meet affordability criteria, and when we sorted that out, it had to go back to a different underwriter - who refused to take payrise into account so we didn't meet affordability criteria again. Then the property was valued at £0 because it had 'too many acres' (despite broker assuring us it wouldn't be an issue) so we had to split the title and buy one field for cash outside the mortgage. Then there was a discrepancy of 40p between two documents which caused another delay.

Blah blah blah. I thought I was going to go mad, but it did get sorted out eventually (only for the FTB at the end of the chain to pull out the following day - aarrgghh! But we do actually live here now, thank goodness!)

I confess that the vendor's estate agent ringing and emailing me every single day with an increasing number of exclamation marks did NOT help, and took me very close to pulling out of the house altogether and finding somewhere cheaper. (I do understand their frustration, but I wasn't delaying on purpose!)

Good luck...

claneyuk

Took 2 months between mortgage application and mortgage offer for me! Also took 4 weeks for NW to arrange joint valuation and survey.