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Remortage frustration
Currently remortgaging for the first time.
My broker lead me to believe it would all be straightforward but this week has been a pain. Not exactly their fault, I guess, but I will be making a suggestion afterwards so they can make sure future client experiences better.
They initiated the application and then the legal and bank side of things took over. I was sent to a portal to answer a questionnaire for the solicitor assigned by the bank, after which I was (to my surprise) prompted to pay £6 just to submit ID forms. The declaration was sent back digitally, but now they want the Mortgage Deed in physical form, which apparently needs to be signed by a witness.
I never had to do that with my original mortgage. It's irritating because 1, who in this day and age has their own printer? and 2, I live alone, there are no witnesses. That is just a pain, and a really stupid box-ticking exercise, because how do they know who this random signature is from? It makes that signature pointless because you could get your 7 year old nephew to sign it and they wouldn't know.
It would have been nice if this had all been outlined to me rather than everything dropping in my inbox unexpectedly one hurdle at a time, but the main frustration is it appears that most people in this industry just assume that every client knows exactly what to expect, when in fact it may be their first time doing it.
The best part is having to jump through all these hoops just to attain the privilege of being ripped off by a bank for the next few years, after which, as parting gift, they charge you another couple of hundred pounds if you remortgage elsewhere, after they have sucked thousands from you with the ridiculously high chunk of interest they took from you 😄
Comments
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Are you trying to move to a different lender, borrow more money, something different, unusual?
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Unfortunately not all mortgage companies support electronic signature of deeds. We did two remortgages late last year, the first lender accepted digital signatures, whereas the second required a signed paper copy.
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Moving to a different lender. The things they're expecting, I didn't even have to do during the initial mortgage.
For witness signature, it's asking for their name and address. That's very intrusive and anyone would feel like a right plank asking a random witness to put their address on something that has nothing to do with them.
The audacity of some of these banks.
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Your solicitor would have taken care of the verification part when you purchased the property.
Without a witness name and address you could just sign it and make up a person, so it would be totally pointless to have a witness without the ability to verify them.
It is not audacious, it is just common sense.
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Not really, I witness passport applications all the time for people, its a requirement so they can check if you did use your 7 year old nephew!
"You've been reading SOS when it's just your clock reading 5:05 "0 -
Yes that's correct, my solicitor did do that when I bought the property. But when remortgaging, some banks want it done again.
As you might expect, it's not easy to get a random person who isn't related to you to sign a form with their name AND address.
Like what's the bank gunna do? Send someone out knocking their door to make sure it was them?
Utterly ridiculous. I've already proven who I am, my affordability, etc.
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That's different. That's likely because you're in a particular position. In this case, they want any random person as long as they aren't related to me.
Which is just so stupid. Expecting you to bother random strangers until someone signs their name and address.
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Do you not have any friends? That is unusual.
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We have had to sign and get witnessed the deed for every mortgage we have taken out, be it an initial application or a remortgage.
It's never been an issue. We have had neighbours, friends and work colleagues witness them for us. It doesn't have to be a random stranger!
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So I should ignore the requirements of not using friends and family?
Happy to do so. I mean, it's a stupid requirement anyway. Whether that part is signed or not makes absolutely zero difference to the outcome - me taking on the debt.
The process should be reviewed so it's more up to date and not from the 1890s.
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