FTB Mortgage Experience with Yorkshire Bank

I just wanted to share my experience in case it can help any other first time buyers who are as confused as I have been! I've searched a lot for Yorkshire Bank related stuff but couldn't find anything.

Here's the deal:

103k property
5% deposit from savings (95% LTV) = £5150
joint mortgage
combined salaries are £43.5k

no defaults/missed payments
have taken out 3 credit cards within the last 6 months
I regularly go into my arranged overdraft (by about £250)
both have student loans.


We got a Mortgage in Principal from Barclays initially, just so we could look at houses (an Estate Agent said some vendors refuse viewings to people without an MiP, I don't know how true this is).

We found the house and had the offer accepted. (On the market for £115k, accepted £103k. Always offer a cheeky low offer to begin with. You can increase offers, you can't decrease them).

We started looking around for the actual mortgage we wanted.

I went to two brokers - L&C and Trussle.

Trussle weren't very good, gave me a rubbish quote and never followed up.

The guy at L&C was very nice and helpful, I asked a lot of questions about the process as I was new to it and he answered everything.

I went in saying I wanted a long term fixed rate mortgage (this is what I'd been advised as at the moment the interest rates are incredibly low and it is pretty much guaranteed that they will only increase in future.)

Both brokers tried to convince me to get a 2 or 3 years fixed rate. Their reasoning was that then I could remortgage and get a better rate sooner.

After looking into mortgage options myself, I found a great 5 year fixed rate with Yorkshire Bank (or Clydesdale if you're based in Scotland). 3.79% initial rate, 95% LTV, 24 year term. No fees, no overpayment charges, £500 cashback.

(9.5.18 19:11 EDIT - I previously said it was hard to find 5 year fixed rate mortgages that you can apply for through a broker. This isn't correct so I have removed it)

Thursday 3rd May - acquired MiP from Yorkshire Bank Online in 10 mins. Sent a message to ask for a mortgage advisor to call me back to apply.

Friday 4th May - Someone called me from Yorkshire Bank to take some details and book in the mortgage advisor appointment.

I later got a call from my estate agent to say the bank had booked in the property valuation for Tuesday 8th.

Tuesday 8th May - had a 40 minute conversation with the mortgage advisor, discussing our income, outgoings, credit cards, etc. basically making sure we had enough money left over every month after all outgoings to pay for the mortgage (they also check it against a higher interest rate and if you could afford the mortgage on just one income)

He emailed me 10 minutes after the call recommending two mortgage options - a longer term and a shorter term, depending on how much we wanted to pay per month.

I confirmed which one I preferred and he emailed through his official mortgage recommendation document, with full details of the mortgage and terms.

The estate agent also called to confirm the property keys had been picked up to do the valuation.

Wednesday 9th May - the mortgage adviser called to talk through the document and make sure I understood everything. He confirmed that the property valuation had taken place and everything was fine. I confirmed that I wanted him to apply for the mortgage.

I emailed across mine and my partners 2 most recent payslips.

That call was at 2pm and by 2:50 he had called to say the credit checks were done and the mortgage had been approved.

That's everything. It was much quicker and simpler than I thought. We were worried because of my overdraft usage and various credit cards but it wasn't an issue at all, at least not with Yorkshire Bank - maybe others would be more scrupulous.

Now were just filling in documents for the mortgage and the solicitor and it should all go through in about 2 months.