Painfully slow mortgage application (Nationwide)

Dusk1983

Submitted application (large loan at 85% LTV) 3 weeks and 2 days ago via a broker. Decision in principle was a formality. We are both on generous London salaries with good credit.

 A few days later Nationwide started raising queries and asking for more documents. They’ve now done this 4 times and each time we go to the back of a queue for the underwriter.

The most recent queries are definitely money laundering related such as source of lump sums in accounts. That’s given us an excuse in front of the EA and seller, as to why the valuation hasn’t been booked yet.

We finally got a generic update today to say they had everything and now the underwriter would decide “if we were acceptable”.

We have investigated a parallel application to another lender, but our broker did some analysis to show all lenders are currently similarly busy and ultimately slow.

Anyone having any similar experiences? Should we be worried? I’m 100% confident (and so is our broker) we meet criteria but on the other hand we aren’t a trivial case given the size of loan (+500k) and LTV.

Thanks all

dj1471

All lenders are not that slow, I just had a straightforward application with Santander through in 10 days from application to offer.
I wonder if the broker is the cause of some of the delay here...
If you’re now in the underwriting queue for the final time you’re probably best waiting it out.

Redwino222

My application to virgin went through very quickly - within two weeks.

but my buyer is with nationwide and a month in the valuation hasn’t happened yet.

Slithery

Some lenders are taking months to make a decision in the current climate.

Petriix

Nationwide have a particular process which is painfully slow and fairly opaque. It's worth chasing them semi-regularly to check that they haven't silently decided that they're waiting for something without telling you. Otherwise you just have to wait it out.

K_S

@dusk1983 Nationwide have been quite slow over the past few weeks, so I don't really see much out of the ordinary in what you've posted. New documentation is taking about 4-6 working days just to get picked up and looked at. And ever since the 90% 5.5x product was introduced and they've relaxed their policies around considering variable pay, etc their volumes have gone through the roof. Definitely not one to pick if you're in a hurry.

One of the problems is (not just with Nationwide) that mainstream lenders keeping stressing to us that DO NOT upload any information or documentation we don't specifically ask for. So even when I know for sure that something will/may be queried, I can't supply any explanation until they ask for it, so that can add a bit of time and to and fro to the process as well.

Based on the limited info in your post, it just sounds like a matter of waiting.

Caracal

We are in a similar situation (73% LTV) and have applied to NW through a broker. We've had the same issue and it's frustrating but pretty standard I think. Part of our issue was the fact that they couldn't book the valuation until 3 weeks after we applied, but I expect that's a shortage of surveyors or similar. Our broker has advised docs are reviewed on a 6 day backlog. It is what it is - irritating but nothing to worry about 😅

mat1964

my GF'a buyers had their desktop valuation nearly a month ago by HSBC and still no decision. 

Mildreds_Earrings

Dusk1983 said:

Submitted application (large loan at 85% LTV) 3 weeks and 2 days ago via a broker. Decision in principle was a formality. We are both on generous London salaries with good credit.

 A few days later Nationwide started raising queries and asking for more documents. They’ve now done this 4 times and each time we go to the back of a queue for the underwriter.

The most recent queries are definitely money laundering related such as source of lump sums in accounts. That’s given us an excuse in front of the EA and seller, as to why the valuation hasn’t been booked yet.

We finally got a generic update today to say they had everything and now the underwriter would decide “if we were acceptable”.

We have investigated a parallel application to another lender, but our broker did some analysis to show all lenders are currently similarly busy and ultimately slow.

Anyone having any similar experiences? Should we be worried? I’m 100% confident (and so is our broker) we meet criteria but on the other hand we aren’t a trivial case given the size of loan (+500k) and LTV.

Thanks all

Same. We bought our home for cash but needed a smallish mortgage. Nationwide offered the best deal but they are painfully slow and four weeks on, we are still waiting for the mortgage offer. On Friday, Nationwide asked for more information, that we could have provided two weeks ago. They said once we upload requested information, they will take 6 working days to process it.

As others have said, think it's just a waiting game at the moment. Try not to worry. Bit frustrating yes but these things are 'normal' post Covid 😊

Dusk1983

Thank you all for the really helpful replies

elvis.london

I have been waiting for 40 working days almost two months for the Nationwide underwriter to sign for mortgage offer. The case handler reviewed all documents and was happy to proceed. To escalate the matter, my broker has been calling Nationwide almost everyday couple of times and each time the calls were in a queue for couple of hours, and the same answer "waiting for underwriter to sign". I am worried if the people are really working from home!