Please help.. changing address during mortgage offer waiting time process

22225

Please help, anyone who might know... we applied to Nationwide mid May and are still waiting. (They have asked for lots of documentation about my inheritance funds for our deposit.) Our problem is this:  We went through a broker and told them from the start that we were not selling our current house and buying the new house simultaneously. So for the last 2 weeks we have been living at my in laws which is a different address to the one on our initial application. when I told the brokers that we had finally moved out, I asked them to confirm that it wouldn'be a problem for Nationwide. They started getting worried and told me not to change my bank statements address or anything and that it would be best not to tell nationwide in case they made us do a brand new application!!!! So I haven't changed any of my details, I've just got the mail redirected. But my husband had already told his current account bank our in laws address. I told the brokers and they just said just to leave everything as it is. I'm so worried. If we have to reapply we  will have to have a higher interest rate and then we wont be able to afford the house.... what should we do??? the brokers are v uncommunoactive. Please help. Does changing your home address throughout the process before the mortgage offer scupper things?  Our brokers originally said it would be fine but I don't think they thought nationwide would take this long to make an offer. We are borrowing 40% and are employed etc no debts.

trakky14

22225 said:

Please help, anyone who might know... we applied to Nationwide mid May and are still waiting. (They have asked for lots of documentation about my inheritance funds for our deposit.) Our problem is this:  We went through a broker and told them from the start that we were not selling our current house and buying the new house simultaneously. So for the last 2 weeks we have been living at my in laws which is a different address to the one on our initial application. when I told the brokers that we had finally moved out, I asked them to confirm that it wouldn'be a problem for Nationwide. They started getting worried and told me not to change my bank statements address or anything and that it would be best not to tell nationwide in case they made us do a brand new application!!!! So I haven't changed any of my details, I've just got the mail redirected. But my husband had already told his current account bank our in laws address. I told the brokers and they just said just to leave everything as it is. I'm so worried. If we have to reapply we  will have to have a higher interest rate and then we wont be able to afford the house.... what should we do??? the brokers are v uncommunoactive. Please help. Does changing your home address throughout the process before the mortgage offer scupper things?  Our brokers originally said it would be fine but I don't think they thought nationwide would take this long to make an offer. We are borrowing 40% and are employed etc no debts.

Get your broker to speak to nationwide and find out why its taking so long...then they can discuss your address etc. That's what you pay your broker fee for. 

simon_or

I agree with what Trakky has said above, expect that it shouldn't matter whether the broker is fee-free or fee-charging, they still get a commission from the bank and that's their main income.

22225

They say that due to money laundering regs they need lots of documentation on proof of funds and where the inheritance money came from. Every time the broker responds to nationwide's query it goes back to the bottom of the pile and there's a Service Level Agreement saying it will be 11-13 working days before you can expect a response. I'm more worried about the change of address issue. any insights?? my brokers seem clueless. please help!!!

[Deleted User]

The change of address shouldn’t be an issue aslong he has iD with that address on it , so driving license for example. It’s strange why nationwide are asking so many questions about your inheritance money as usually that’s the solicitor that do that as part of their checks. 

Fromthebrink

@22225 Do you have any updates on this? 

I’m about to be placed in the very same situation due to the delay in a very standard application…. 

22225

Ok so when we first applied it had to be done online, theyve now found out about the change of address and it now has to be done again on paper.... but I believe it is due to us porting part of the mortgage.... first there was talk of us having to do a new rate but hopefully not.... I think ask your broker because I cant make head nor tail of nationwide's procedures given that we applied early/mid may and apparently now it will be 17 more working days for them to re key the info... however if ur not porting maybe it wont apply for you? Our brokers changed their tune and have now told us to get on the electoral roll at our current address. what a mess. Ask ur broker cos I really dont want to tell u the wrong advice.

thomas1112

I'm also in this situation, Nationwide applicant, started out hoping to port the "traditional" way by selling and buying on the same day but that didn't work out. We've had to sell our old house and rent whilst the conveyancing for the new place goes through. Only expecting a gap of a couple of months.

I won't lie, it has caused some issues. We applied through a Nationwide mortgage consultant so perhaps have some advantage as they know their processes very well, but the original application that was submitted via their normal system started having issues after we redeemed the old mortgage account so it had to be rekeyed. Perhaps as you're going through a broker this is why they're asking for the paper form to be completed, whereas I suspect our mortgage consultant sorted this in the background? We originally applied on 18th May. It was only when they tried to generate the offer documents on 8th June that they realised there was an issue as the old account had been redeemed in between. We did not lose the rare we had reserved on the original application though.

The final hurdle is manual offer documents, as the application is handled and underwritten manually, the offer documents have to be manually keyed by someone. We've now been waiting over two weeks for this and I was told yesterday it's likely to be another week at least (yes this is literally just for the offer letter!). The only reassurce is that they keep saying the underwriting part is done, but obviously until the paperwork is in my hands I'll be worried.

Some terminology they use internally may help which I've picked up during the process:

Simultaneous port - the normal way where you buy and sell on the same day. This seems to be well handled by Nationwide's systems.

Split port - where there is time to reach offer before the existing mortgage account is redeemed (we were hoping to do this but things took longer than expected which is why we've had to have a rekey done). Material changes to a split port application after redemption of the old account may trigger a rekey and it being treated as non-simultaneous. Again provided you have time to reach offer before redemption this is well handled by Nationwide's systems.

Non-simultaneous port - where there is not enough time to reach offer before the existing mortgage account is redeemed. These cases have to be processed manually and submitted on paper if using a broker (they seem to have some paperless process if applying direct but it's still manually handled).

Regarding the change of address, I'm planning on leaving everything as it is for simplicity and letting the redirection handle the post. We're only going to be here for a few months so I don't want to confuse the issue any more. Solicitor seems to think this will be fine as they have already done all of their ID checks etc. If Nationwide do challenge it we have a reasonable explanation and obviously could always update the address if they want us to.

Hope this helps someone, these processes seem notoriously hard to find information on so this is just a collection of what I've been told on the phone over the last 8 weeks.

thomas1112

Fromthebrink said:

@22225 Do you have any updates on this? 

I’m about to be placed in the very same situation due to the delay in a very standard application…. 

If you can, I would escalate this to avoid it becoming a rekey before your old account is redeemed based on my experience above. You may have a hard time getting an escalation though if it's still within their service levels.

22225

Thanks for that. Next time I will go direct and not thru a broker. Do u agree that would be best???! I thought a broker would make it easier but maybe not

thomas1112

It depends, if you are tied to a specific lender for whatever reason then I would say best to go direct with them. But if you're not sure what you want/need or have a complex case and don't want to do the chasing yourself, a broker would be a good idea. The down side of applying direct is you have to do a lot of the phone calls to chase and providing info yourself.

We are tied to Nationwide or we will have to pay £5k ish of ERCs.

In other words, personal preference 🙂