Mortgage - How long does it take to get one?

[nell15]

Hi how long does it take to get a mortgage through? This is turning into a long running saga

We were all set to exchange contracts the beginning of December then we found out the people at the bottom of our chain were applying for a mortgage instead of using family money, as we'd been lead to understand. The survey was mid December. - it was a short survey for valuation purposes. We assumed they'd hear either before xmas or after new year, as yet no one in the chain knows. All we know is that their estate told our buyers that they have it in principle and should hear in 3 - 5 working days - by Monday at the latest. Our estate agent has been liaising with their estate and a big problem is poor communication - they say the agent is in a meeting and don't return calls.

I'm beginning to wonder if these people have got a mortgage
I asked their ea yesterday if there is a problem and was told there isn't and that it is definitely coming through, but why whenever our estate agent contacts their ea for an update do they not return her calls? Our ea has just rang to say they still haven't returned her calls.

[Herschellmum]

Mortgage in principle is fairly instant, mortgage itself seems to be a minimum of 6 weeks.

[Bluntness100]

They should have it by now, but Xmas could have held stuff up.

[Scribblegirl]

Our valuation survey took two weeks to turn up - I was crapping myself that something was wrong but TSB were just slow, it seems. I suppose given Christmas it's feasible that it could have taken this long but the fact they are using a mortgage when they said they wouldn't is frustrating - understand why you don't trust them!

Fingers crossed for you OP. As it was our purchase took five months with no chain when we'd anticipated about 2 so I feel your pain!

[ShowOfHands]

We recently (moved 4 weeks ago) bought and sold in less than 4 weeks from offers to completion. We were told the mortgage could take "up to 3 weeks" from application. It took less than a week. More like 5 days.

[nell15]

Thanks everyone. It's not helped by their estate agent being so elusive. I don't understand why if we all started this process at the beginning of October they only decided to get a mortgage at beginning of Dec. Again I blame the estate agent for not checking out their ability to buy