NatWest excessive hard searches

grace62801

Hello,
Sorry if this is in the wrong place it’s my first time posting.

Me and my partner are in the process of buying our first house, looking at exchange and completion in the next few weeks. After reading that banks might do another credit search before releasing funds we both checked our credit reports in case anything needed ironing out. Well NatWest did 32 hard searches on me and 16 on my partner in the application process, the vast majority all on the same day.
That’s not normal, is it? 

We’ve left a message with our mortgage broker to see what’s up. My concern is that if the final check is done by a computer not a human it might see that number of credit applications and not release funds? Is that a possibility? 

Thank you 

RedCannon94

How long into the process did they do a hard check? Currently a week into my app with them, valuation tomorrow yet no hard checks via Experian / Equifax currently.

Definitely isn't normal to have more than a handful of hard checks through an app however. I'd get your broker to flag it with Natwest 

grace62801

First hard checks were at application, then the valuation happened, the next 20 odd were when they were reviewing documents as per the tracker, the final two were the day before we received the offer. We’re definitely querying - reckon computer error or intern clicked a button a few two many times… NatWest use Equifax btw 

It was only two weeks between valuation and offer for us, and that was with a delay of them wanting extra information which we had to post. 

MSE_Kit

Hi Grace,

Did you get to the bottom of this in the end? I'd be interested to hear what the outcome was.

Thanks,

Kit

snowqueen555

I'm wondering how you track the searches? I applied in January, it got approved but I never bought, but there is no record on clearscore or credit karma.

grace62801

Our broker got onto NatWest who passed it onto their internal audit team, as we flagged it for audit there shouldn’t now be a situation of ‘computer says no’ the day before completion. They think it was a system error but not actually sure what happened. Hopefully they’ll be able to get them removed but it shouldn’t affect anything now. 

The searches appeared on my Equifax report, don’t know how long it took though because I wasn’t monitoring it.