House sale taking forever…

[SadSoul92]

I have no previous experience in selling a house so I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable here. I accepted an offer on my house on the 5 and a half months ago, the buyer is STILL waiting for final mortgage approval apparently the mortgage company have been asking the buyer for more and more paperwork which has caused delays. The mortgage advisor emailed my estate agent today to say they had sent in more requested paperwork and that there confident they should have the offer within the next week or so, but then the email finishes with “we’re hoping to have the last update before the weekend and we’re hoping this is the last one before the final assessment for a mortgage offer” I don’t understand what this means by final assessment? Does this mean yet even more waiting? Apparently my buyer went through an online mortgage advisor instead of a bank so estate agent says this can cause delays. Anyone have any experience or advise? I’m becoming increasingly worried at all the time that has passed by and feeling no further forwards…

If they don’t have a mortgage approved they aren’t proceedable. What if it doesn’t get approved? You’ve wasted almost 6 months.

Id suggest you give them 5 working days or resist the property. They can always come back to you later if it’s still on the market.

this is my worry but my estate agents says it’s normal to not be able to officially apply for the mortgage until you put an offer on the house, the buyers had a mortgage in principal but it seems to be taking forever for the actual mortgage..

Please be as patient as you can and try not to despair. I know someone going through similar from the buyer’s perspective. They send all the paperwork and then it gets sat on for a week and then they get asked stupid questions and then nothing for a week and by that time some of the paperwork is out of date e.g statements and utilities so they would still say send an update and it drags on and on and then oh look new legislation where that’s an extra couple of £k of Stamp Duty for example - nothing moves as it should in the house selling industry and it is all about novel ways to make the Buyer and Seller pay more and more and something that could have taken 4 weeks takes closer to 12 months.
I hope you get some good news soon 💐

Ergh, we were these buyers- it was genuine delays and the root cause of it was that our mortgage advisor was useless. He didn’t tell us that the first AIP he sorted for us was based on a 20% deposit despite knowing we only had 10%…. We didn’t find out until we received a fully approved mortgage offer…. Requiring £30k MORE deposit than we had!

Thus we had to start all over again with a different lender, by which time Liz Truss was PM and mortgage rates were skyrocketing and we had to go for a much longer term to accommodate the new rate! He then also failed to tell us that the new lender he’d recommended us were notoriously slow and well known for constantly asking for more documents. Basically they’d ask us for payslips, we’d provide same day, they had a 7 day review period and decide they also needed employment contracts. We’d provide, 7 days for them to review and then they wanted evidence of our rental property income, rinse and repeat. Several times the mortgage advisor simply forgot to give us the new requests unless I phoned and chased. It took over 9 weeks and eventually I called the bank myself and bollocked them for putting our sale at risk (god knows what the mortgage advisor was doing). They asked for yet more documents, I provided within an hour and had the offer before close of business.

The whole thing was an embarrassing nightmare and I still cringe when I think about it (we both work in financial services!!!!) and am glad our sellers held on as they were buying a complex probate property themselves.

Our mistake was trusting the mortgage advisor and then not firing him for the second application based on sunk costs.

Just wanted to give an alternative perspective as everyone is going to tell you your buyers are not serious. We were genuinely having a nightmare, despite only needing to borrow 1.5x salary!

Thanks @BournardTourney maybe this is what I was kinda hoping to hear. I know my estate agents says the buyer sounds equally frustrated so I am trying my best to be patient I just hadn’t expected it to take so long…it’s just such a weird position to be in because if it doesn’t go through for any reason it kinda feels like almost half a year “wasted” and to be honest I’m struggling at the moment to pay the council tax and utility bills on it whilst it sits empty which is increasing my anxiousness.

I can totally see that it must be frustrating for the buyer too and the only thread I’m holding on to is the fact my estate agent is telling me this also. I’m just increasingly concerned of what will happen if it doesn’t go through after all these months.. thanks for sharing this though it helps me feel more like this is “normal” and just part of the process of selling a house. Glad you managed to get sorted and hope you’re enjoying your home!

Sorry to read this OP. I think the risk now is this won’t be sorted before Christmas. Solicitors I’ve used previously for moving used to close before Christmas holidays and then reopen mid-January (to accommodate ski-ing holidays 😂).

I would be tempted to give a 7 day grace period and then look to market the property again. Are you happy with the estate agents?

My estate agents really have been amazing talking to both the buyer and his mortgage advisor. They literally call or message me every single day to tell me if there’s any update or even if there isn’t to tell me they have tried. Apparently the buyer is just being asked for a lot of additional paperwork and apparently supplied some things digitally which turned out needed to be hard copies which his mortgage advisor failed to tell him. I’m hoping it doesn’t drag on till Christmas, all searches have been completed and all documents signed from both of us on the solicitors sides it’s literally “just” the mortgage holding everything up but obviously this is kind of the main thing needed 😂trying my best to stay positive for completion before Christmas.

We were these buyers. We were tearing our hair out at the banks. We changed mortgages twice because one lender after another couldn't accept comprehensive answers to increasingly obscure questions, which seemed designed to make sure we lost the house. Fortunately our sellers hung on, probably knew it would happen to the next buyers. Several people I know who have been buying/selling in the last year or two have faced the same.

Thanks for sharing this, yes thats my kind of feeling too that even if I were to pull out which to be honest if this really out of their control I don’t want to do, as my estate agent is saying they are equally really frustrated then I could literally just be starting this whole process again anyways.

I work as a mortgage advisor, it seems odd it is taking so so long but it does depend which lender they are using, some are very very slow at reviewing documents. Once one document is reviewed it often leads to a request for another document. Also Aip are abit pointless, often when it comes to the actual application being submitted, often move lenders due to property not meeting criteria, rates being changed etc. I would suggest give it another week, and then say enough is enough, but be caredul acting in haste as the market is very very slow in my area.

Also this! One particular saga about my student loan was ridiculous.

My payslips clearly showed a student loan, as did the application. A whopping 5 weeks after they’d received both these, they randomly started asking ridiculous questions about my student loan. I provided them with the account statements and the Plan details, detailing the repayment terms. They continued to ask for evidence and comfort that my student loan repayments wouldn’t increase BEYOND the terms of the loan 🤔. They suggested a wet ink signed letter from a “senior person” at the Student Loans Company…. When I questioned why they had such a ridiculous ask (I also felt like it was just designed to trip us up and make sure we didn’t buy the house!) they said it was what was required as comfort as they had no evidence of the size of the repayments I was currently making…. At which point I pointed out that every single one of the 12 months payslips that I’d provided on Day 1 showed the exact same amount being repaid each month (because you know, how else did they know I had a student loan?!). It was a mixture of ridiculous standards and sheer incompetence that blew my mind!

Sorry but IME that is far too long for a mortgage application and I would have gone back on the market months ago

Thanks for this. On average how long would you usually expect a mortgage application to take? Any ideas what they mean by saying after this last payment they should progress to the “final assessment”

You’ve very patient, more than I would have been. I’d give them until the end of the month and if they are still fannying about I’d relist. I’ve bought and sold a few houses and all have completed around 12 weeks.

4 to 6 weeks is average for a mortgage offer to come through IME

5 and a half months is not that long for the whole process but it seems long for the mortgage part.

When we sold our house last year, it was the solicitors that were dragging it out. They would eventually get round to reading the answers to queries and then quickly put off the work off by sending another small irrelevant query to our solicitor so they didn’t have to do anymore work on it until that was answered. They then waited another week to read that answer and then send another small query back, it went on like that for weeks. It would be things like can you draw a red line round the boundary and send it back so it’s absolutely clear even though the boundary was clear from the land registry anyway.

I think they had too much work on and not enough people so they literally just tried to bat work away for each sale they were doing. It sounds like this mortgage advisor might be doing the same thing. All through this we were worried our buyers weren’t motivated but they were. In the end it meant a short few days between exchange and completion which we didn’t want, we wanted longer to get organised.

I didn’t mind that it took so long, that wasn’t the issue at all, I minded that there was so much time with so much uncertainty, and then a quick rush at the end to get sorted.

Thanks everyone, I think I will hold out till Monday and then maybe consider relisting it whilst the sale goes through to try and get a back up buyer? Is this a fair thing to do?

Totally fair. Whoever comes up with the money first gets it.

Do I re list it as already under offer though? As I equally don’t want to waste a new buyers time should it go through. X

Sorry for slow reply. Hopefully it will be a final underwriter check just to make sure they have not taken out more credit and everything is as it should be. A mortgage application to offer can be about 10 days but that's for very straight forward, we have just had one take 4 months just because lender were so rubbish and kept asking for more random documents but this is unusual, most are much quicker. Good luck.

I don't think a new buyer would tolerate being in this situation as a mere back-up and second fiddle tbh. I wouldn't, sorry OP.

Latest update today that the buyers have been asked for more bank statements as they submitted screenshots which isn’t sufficient, however had this exact same issue a few weeks ago. As per estate agents advice I have now relisted the property.

I think that’s the right decision OP. Are you sure the reasons given are genuine for the delays? Hopefully this will either gee them up or you’ll get a better buyer with an improved offer maybe.

Good luck 🤞

The broker sounds rubbish, we all know that screen shots are not accepted. Full bank statements showing name and address etc. Definitely done right thing relisting it.