To ask how intrusive your last mortgage application process was?

[OptimismvsRealism]

I am putting off moving because I have this phobia of going through my bank account details and feeling like a chastened child. I haven't had an overdraft for a long time, my salary is decent, I've been in ft employment for 20 years and I do save every month but somehow the idea of some kid asking if I really need all those coffees and dresses is just giving me the arg.

Has anyone had an experience where they just look at your income and your savings and say away you go?

We've just done ours but it was with our current bank so they have all the details anyway.

We each had to provide 3 months of bank statements.

DH did 2 online meetings with them. I couldn't join as wasn't available. The meetings were mostly answering DH's questions.

That was it. easy peasy.

Same as PP. Our mortgage is through the bank that DH & I both have our current accounts with. They obviously have access to our transactional spending but we had to provide little except for some payslips for the mortgage application as clearly the computer hadn’t flagged up any concerns with our income and spending activity. Not necessarily going to get you the best rate though.

I did mine in 2015 and was new to the bank (I had opened the account just over 6 months prior). I don’t remember it being intrusive at all. Renewals since have been very straightforward

We use a broker. They really need very few details apart from our salaries. You have to send off a few pay slips & bank statements but only for your main account. I think if you’re really stretching affordability they could have more questions but I’ve never found it an onerous process.

We changed our mortgage provider this year when we refixed and they just asked for payslips, no bank statements or anything. They asked me our outgoings which I just told them over the phone how much the bills were and approximately how much we spent on things like going out etc and that was it. I was quite surprised as I was expecting them to ask for bank statements like the previous times, but they only wanted payslips

@Thewholeplaceglitters i also engaged in broker initially as i was intimidated by the process (first mortgage ) but then when he said it’ll be £3.5k for what was a pretty straightforward situation I went and did it in my own. Worse case scenario if it was too stressful for me I knew I can go back to the broker.

I remember once going through London and Country, or L&C as I think they call themselves now. It wasn't intrusive or onerous. It was done on the phone initially and followed by correspondence via email.

If you are applying for some unusual kind of loan amount or conditions or type of mortgage, it might be more searching, questioning or intrusive but for a well established standard type of arrangement, it shouldn't be too bad to get through.
I don't expect you'll have a nervous breakdown from being asked a few questions about your spending habits and intentions.

I don't think anyone will ask anything to that level of detail?

Never been questioned on spending but i haven't borrowed more than I can clearly afford. Last time we borrowed was 2020 so not that long ago

I think the ltv and salary multiple makes a difference plus any unusual outgoings

I have (recovering) bad credit and it was fine, so you'll have no issues at all I'd have thought. We had no invasive questions or line-by-line bank statement inspections: we fit affordability and clearly weren't spending money on anything they found objectionable, so it was okay.

Unless you either don't really fit the affordability or there's something a lender is likely to raise an eyebrow at, they're unlikely to make you justify every purchase.

Off the top of my head, that's stuff like:

• gambling;
• disproportionately high spending on frivolous stuff (if you've got an issue with affordability, especially - they're going to be less bothered at you spending £1k a month on Deliveroo if your salary is £10k a month and the mortgage is only £500, as a silly example);
• large cash withdrawals or deposits;
• unclear income sources;
• regular payments not declared on your affordability assessment (I've only ever applied via a broker but I imagine it's the same direct to lender, if you do that - they'll ask you to list all incomings and outgoings, and if you haven't declared, say, a £25 a month DD then they may ask what it is to include it in the assessment.

This basically but we have LTV ratio of about 0.3 and are only borrowing 1.5 X my salary ( we don't use DH's income as self employed).

No hassle at all
It was a renewal with existing mortgage lender who I also bank with
I have quite high equity, not that long left on mortgage and earn ok
The worst for me was the length of time it took to get an appointment as I wanted to shorten the term and interest rates were rising so cost me more!

When porting the tiny remains of my mostly paid off mortgage between houses, I still had to go through a full affordability test. This included a question on what I would do if the interest rate increased by a specific amount, meaning the mortgage payment would be £10 more expensive a month.

Didn't get asked anything. Mortgage broker handled it all, just emailed over the statements and that was it.

I was cautious with my spending for a good 3-4 months prior to applying. Mostly because my income stream isn't the typical 9-5 job, and my pay can vary massively week to week. In the end they took 6 months of payslips, and as I'm paid weekly, that was an arse. But that's just because of the work I do. The standard is 3-4 months worth.

As it happens, I probably needn't have been so cautious. They seemed to have no interest in what I actually spent my money on. I don't think they raised a single query over anything like that. As long as you're not going into the red every month, and your credit score is good, then that's all they seem to really care about.

We did ours through a broker and it didn't feel instrusive at all. Just wanted salary details, details of any ongoing financial commitments and we had to send off bank statements. They didn't even want credit card statements, which was weird as we do the majority of our spending on them for the rewards and pay off every month, so our bank statements are very dull!

We did end up going with our bank, so I guess they 'knew' us already.

Avoid the Santander is my advice.
We had a 7 week nightmare with them when we upsized this summer. Customer for ten years and they wanted 3 forms of proof that a 37p balance had been cleared, a signed "dear Santander we promise not to buy another sofa on interest free" letter and also a breakdown of where our children are each day as they didn't believe our child care costs even though they were there on our statement in black and white. Finally offered 20k less than the AIP which meant we couldn't afford new house.
There was more and I promise I made none of this up. It was unbelievably petty and pedantic.
Halifax took 3 days to offer what we needed. No hassle at all. Had to pay £5k ERC but worth it to get away from those clowns at Santander.

Have to agree with PP, Santander were pricks, utter bastards, we’ve been their customers for ten yrs and they put us through hell when we moved in 2022 despite having a LTV of 0.4 and impeccable rating. It was only the fact we were porting a five year fix at 1.1% that we stayed with them, otherwise we would have gone elsewhere. OP, avoid brokers (waste of money) and avoid Santander and you’ll be fine.

Always used a broker and never been asked anything.

We've been with Santander for 6 years and never had an issue. The brokers we've used get their fee from the lender.

Weirdly we had no hassle at all with Santander 3 years ago...we moved and took a five year fix and quite literally the only thing we submitted was 3 months wage slips....no bank statements, nothing else at all, and the mortgage was approved really quickly. We did have a good broker but was incredibly straightforward.

We used an independent broker, he asked a few questions to clarify a couple of outgoings on our accounts but wouldn't describe it as intrusive & there was nothing that was a barrier to us getting accepted for the actual mortgage.

In my recent mortgage application all they were bothered about was standing orders and direct debits, not every transaction I had made. They're usually just interested in your committed expenditure

Never had any difficult questions from the lender. It’s dealing with the solicitors after it’s been agreed in principle that’s always been the headache. (No intrusive questions just really laborious).