Reply to: Awaiting Mortgage offer for over 10 days

[fool]

"Look I earned £500 yesterday betting on the tennis. That means I earn £500/day, please can I borrow £500,000?"

I got mine based on a day rate and a 6 month contract.

[Mark McBurney@CMME]

So you think it is unreasonable to expect an immediate response to emails and phone enquiries? The most important purchase that you're likely to make? I think it is essential that clients get an immediate response, irrespective if they're paying a broker fee or not.

And by the way, Halifax is the go to lender when you need urgency and speed. They're super fast at processing contractors applications (as long as it has been packaged fully and correctly). Typically it takes a day to get a decision in principle and 3-4 weeks to go to mortgage offer after full application submission. If you're remortgaging it's even quicker, under one week.

Halifax have really fine tuned it's application processing systems for contractors, they've made it really easy for specialist mortgage brokers who know what their doing.

Now if it was Virgin Money or Leeds Building Society, I can understand it taking longer, as they're a lot slower but NOT Halifax.

Just as a caveat - if your mortgage is £300k+ you will encounter Halifax Premier, who are currently working on a four week delay for applications (information from this afternoon), so they aren't perfect.

This is, however, as John explains, very much outside of their usual service.

[Freelancer Financials]

Which rates are you people getting nowdays?

I was told by a broker, few weeks ago:

25% Deposit – 2.49% 2 year fixed rate with no arrangement fee
25% Deposit – 3.34% 5 year fixed rate with no arrangement fee


Halifax. Less than 75% LTV.

The rates have got better:

25% Deposit – 2.14% 2 year fixed rate with no arrangement fee
25% Deposit – 2.94% 5 year fixed rate with no arrangement fee

They're constantly changing!

[AnotherGuy]

Which rates are you people getting nowdays?

I was told by a broker, few weeks ago:

25% Deposit – 2.49% 2 year fixed rate with no arrangement fee
25% Deposit – 3.34% 5 year fixed rate with no arrangement fee


Halifax. Less than 75% LTV.

[Freelancer Financials]

Just thought i'd pitch in here and say that it is pretty normal to expect 3 -4 weeks for the mortgage application to go through with Halifax at the moment. This is mainly due to the new BoE rules requiring closer scrutiny of applications by the underwriters and partly due to the volume of applications.

I am personally also being led to believe that my papoerwork is in good order which means that I may see an offer come through earlier than the expected 3 -4 weeks. The dury is still out on this but my next update is due on Monday and my applicatin went in to Halifac on the 9th July .

Regarding communication with Contractor Financials, I think it is sensible to say that they are a busy office and as such to expect immediate responses to emails and phone enquiries is probably a bit unreasnable. For example it takes them a few hours to do handovers on the phone with the lenders due to the volume of processing presently.

So you think it is unreasonable to expect an immediate response to emails and phone enquiries? The most important purchase that you're likely to make? I think it is essential that clients get an immediate response, irrespective if they're paying a broker fee or not.

And by the way, Halifax is the go to lender when you need urgency and speed. They're super fast at processing contractors applications (as long as it has been packaged fully and correctly). Typically it takes a day to get a decision in principle and 3-4 weeks to go to mortgage offer after full application submission. If you're remortgaging it's even quicker, under one week.

Halifax have really fine tuned it's application processing systems for contractors, they've made it really easy for specialist mortgage brokers who know what their doing.

Now if it was Virgin Money or Leeds Building Society, I can understand it taking longer, as they're a lot slower but NOT Halifax.

[rocktronAMP]

Offer arrived by post this morning!

It's odd because CF chased up this morning and they weren't told the mortgage had already been approved. And the letter it's dated on 4th August.

Anyway now fingers crossed and wish for the deal to complete soon!

Glad you made over the second of the finishing lines

PS: If you were still looking for another broker, I would have suggested Power Mortgages, because they helped me over the line December 2014 - January 2015

[scaleup]

They don't charge a fee.I would never recommend them, my experience with them has been terrible

I had the same experience. Too good to be true is the description I can think of.

[Mark McBurney@CMME]

Offer arrived by post this morning!

It's odd because CF chased up this morning and they weren't told the mortgage had already been approved. And the letter it's dated on 4th August.

Anyway now fingers crossed and wish for the deal to complete soon!

Good news!

You got there in the end

[Daventry]

Offer arrived by post this morning!

It's odd because CF chased up this morning and they weren't told the mortgage had already been approved. And the letter it's dated on 4th August.

Anyway now fingers crossed and wish for the deal to complete soon!

[Mark McBurney@CMME]

They say that Halifax has decided to assess the documents before instructing the valuation as they already did with my first application.

Hi,

On occasion certain applications will be pulled for audit (at random, don't worry about your particular application), and with these applications they will delay instruction of the survey until after the initial audit.

Nothing to be unduly worried about, I wouldn't think.

[Daventry]

They say that Halifax has decided to assess the documents before instructing the valuation as they already did with my first application.

[cablarnshowntone]

They certainly are a busy office - not sure I understand this bit though? Handovers?

Regardless, Halifax are amongst the quickest around at present in processing terms, with the average mortgage offer taking c.4 weeks, but it certainly isn't uncommon to get a mortgage offer in 2/3 either.

Most lenders suffered badly with the changes as a result of MMR in April, however Halifax appear to have got back on track quicker than most, and are now running at around the same processing timescales as pre-April.

Handover is where they exchange information on each application. So the 'handover' a batch of x amount of application information.

Anyway, turns out my mortgage got accepted after 10 working days so a quick turnaround from Contactor Financials.

[Mark McBurney@CMME]

Hi,

Since my previous attempt of purchase fell through after I got my mortgage with Halifax, CF did submit a new application for the new flat I've found.
They said the previous one was done before MMR so now this one has to go through MMR and it's not just a Change of Application but a new one.
On 11th July they told me Halifax would instruct the valuation within 48 hours. I'm still waiting for that to happen...

I don't know who's to blame here, but I'm so fed up with both CF and Halifax...

Regards

Hi Daventry,

That's correct - with any application submitted prior to 26th April, if there are any changes to the application, Halifax require a new submission, rather than just a change of property.

Re: timescales - at what stage was the new application on 11th July? Halifax usually instruct valuation within a week of application, so I'd call CF to confirm, there may well be a reason?

Either way, you should find it a fairly quick process once the new valuation has been completed, having been assessed for the previous property.

Best,

Mark

[Daventry]

They certainly are a busy office - not sure I understand this bit though? Handovers?

Regardless, Halifax are amongst the quickest around at present in processing terms, with the average mortgage offer taking c.4 weeks, but it certainly isn't uncommon to get a mortgage offer in 2/3 either.

Most lenders suffered badly with the changes as a result of MMR in April, however Halifax appear to have got back on track quicker than most, and are now running at around the same processing timescales as pre-April.

Hi,

Since my previous attempt of purchase fell through after I got my mortgage with Halifax, CF did submit a new application for the new flat I've found.
They said the previous one was done before MMR so now this one has to go through MMR and it's not just a Change of Application but a new one.
On 11th July they told me Halifax would instruct the valuation within 48 hours. I'm still waiting for that to happen...

I don't know who's to blame here, but I'm so fed up with both CF and Halifax...

Regards

[Mark McBurney@CMME]

For example it takes them a few hours to do handovers on the phone with the lenders due to the volume of processing presently.

They certainly are a busy office - not sure I understand this bit though? Handovers?

Regardless, Halifax are amongst the quickest around at present in processing terms, with the average mortgage offer taking c.4 weeks, but it certainly isn't uncommon to get a mortgage offer in 2/3 either.

Most lenders suffered badly with the changes as a result of MMR in April, however Halifax appear to have got back on track quicker than most, and are now running at around the same processing timescales as pre-April.