Mortgage interview questions

[Sidalee7]

Posting for traffic apologies for AIBU!
Has anyone recently had a mortgage interview with Santander?
I’ve had the agreement in principle, the credit checks and provided all evidence of earnings. This is the final piece and I’m keen to know if it’s a formality or are they going to dissect my supermarket budget?
It’s silly but I’m having massive anxiety over it and feel like I’m going to have a panic attack on the phone. The interview isn’t for another 2 weeks.

We got a mortgage with Santander 18months ago. We had the interview but only can you afford it now, no concern for the future. Also, have you got appropriate insurance? Also can we sell you our paid-for current account/credit card?

We had one last week. They asked us:

• if we had enough money for the conveyancing
• if we could afford removal van (never been asked this before!!)
• if any colleagues had been furloughed
• if we are working from home
• about our student loans

And that’s about it. We’ve had a Santander mortgage for 6 years and they didn’t ask us this stuff before so it was a surprise

Hope that helps :)

Thanks @KEA321, v helpful
@toomuchfaster interesting- I wonder if they are stepping it up because of COVID. I’ve been asked at least 3 times if I’ve been furloughed or if my company is at risk because of COVID.

@MrsHarryKane - are you working from home? I am, I wonder why they ask this.

When we we had our interview they just went over the MIP and they they asked a few questions likewhy we were putting that deposit amount down, i think the gague if we had plans for other savings. If we were planning any major changes in our lifestyle etc. They also went through mortgage fee and if we wanted to add that on or pay it and how much we could overpay by.

@Sidalee7 we just said that we’re WFH while Boris tells us to and then we’re back in the office as soon as we’re allowed.

I think it’s something to do with not being able to work from home on a normal mortgage. Insurance maybe?

They were happy with our answer though :)

Yes it's normal for Santander. I recently ported a Santander mortgage and had a telephone interview as part of the process you mention. TBH they already had all the information they needed from my first call phone with them when the did the credit check.
The interview phone call confirms everything again and is with a more specialized mortgage advisor. They never once asked to see bank statements or discussed my spending habits. They use figures from the Office of National Statistics to work out your spending habits. We discussed mortgage term and how much the monthly payments would be.
They took payment for the house valuation so have your bank card ready.
It took about 4O mins, the valuation came through 2 days later and the mortgage offer the day after that.
Don't worry, it will be fine.

Thank you @spinningaround72 @MrsHarryKane @notangelinajolie - all really helpful.

Hi OP, I finalised my mortgage with Santander in June. I remember that they asked me about how my child benefit would be replaced, but I was close to my upper limit of borrowing. They also asked about some expenditure items, some of which were really small like PayPal £10 and I genuinely couldn't remember but said it's likely to be x,y,z. All went through fine.

We moved to Santander recently. It’s just checking generally what your fixed outgoings are and roughly what you spend on what. It’s not going into your shopping, more spending generally in groups ie food, utilities, travel etc
You can google the rough categories but they don’t go any more detail than that in my exp

We had our interview with Santander last week and it was all fine. He just double checked our affordability (using assumptions from ONS data so we didn't need to have all our bills to hand).

He then talked us through our mortgage product options - fixed or tracker, 2 year or 5 year etc. We ended changing the amount we wanted to borrow because we wanted a better interest rate (only available at 60% LTV) so it was a useful discussion.

Because everything was straightforward our case didn't need to be referred to the underwriter which is a good thing. It's all taking long enough anyway.

So no need to worry - hope it goes smoothly for you.

When we got our first one in 2014 with Nationwide they made us do a spending review at the interview where we had to tell them what we spent on food, travel, bills etc. They then told us that they didn't think we spent enough on food at Asda for two people and they'd have to check our accounts

We were buying in London, had saved a 20% deposit plus stamp duty (which amounted to about £120k) and they were quibbling over what we said we spent at Asda. I only realised how odd it was a few years later when we got another mortgage as we upsized and the lender didn't question us at all.

We had two mortgage interviews only 3.5 years ago with Natwest.

One for the app which was quick and easy
One for the actual mortgage, we were both customers and she did go through our bank statements. Questioning regular payments that kind of thing. We had no debts and were borrowing around 55% house value. So it was fine.

But yes I don’t think I’ve been so nervous in all my life! We really wanted this house, the best we had seen and a great price. It was all straight forward but it’s an important time of life buying your first house!

Should add at a similar time friends got a HSBC mortgage and they had an even more in depth interview discussing budgets for bills and food etc!

Obviously I’ve no very recent experience. Good luck OP