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Original poster

Calling all current mortgage applicants...

73 replies

SnowBells · 25/04/2014 19:13

If any of you are out there, I thought it would be good to have a thread for all of us to see how we're getting on now that the MMR is in place. It would be great to share experiences, since there aren't many threads about this around.

Let us hope, panic, despair, be angry or be happy together… Blush

OP posts:
CogitoErgoSometimes · 26/04/2014 10:30

I already experienced the new rules having taken out a sizeable extra mortgage in February. Went through a detailed interview process where my income and outgoings were checked much more thoroughly in the past, and the borrowing was agreed & the money paid out very quickly. They even managed to schedule the borrowing in a different way than I had originally envisaged making it more affordable all round. Personally I felt reassured after the process that the bank was concerned that I wasn't overstretching myself.

Apatite1 · 26/04/2014 17:24

That sounds like a good experience cogito!

We will be applying in 3 months' time, need to pull back the spending to make the bank balance fatter. Not that we expect it to make a big difference, as we have no loans, no large direct debits and no childcare costs. Still, we would like to put our healthiest foot forward. I will report back on how it all goes in due course!

WorrisomeHeart · 26/04/2014 17:30

We've recently had our mortgage approved and I had to spend 2 hours on the phone with Santander running through all outgoings and income. I agree, it felt like a really sensible conversation and as it's a large loan I wouldn't have expected anything else.

Windsorcastle99 · 27/04/2014 22:28

As this is no doubt tHe single biggest piece of expenditure / financial commitment we will make in our lives, it seems entirely reasonable that an interview will take 2-3 hours don't you think?

rpitchfo · 28/04/2014 08:48

Yes, it does some reasonable, however that won't be much consolation to the people who managed to get onto the first rung of the housing ladder one or two years ago with a fixed mortgage and are now having to remortgage under much tougher rules.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 28/04/2014 11:17

Why would they be having to remortgage?

juneybean · 28/04/2014 18:57

I'm about to apply for my first mortgage and absolutely shitting my pants even though I have a financial advisor holding my hand.

Windsorcastle99 · 28/04/2014 19:14

Agree with you cogito. Just because your fixed date is coming to an end does not mean you have to remortgage

noddyholder · 28/04/2014 19:55

You can either go straight to SVR or be re assessed for a new deal in which case the new rules will apply

BuggersMuddle · 28/04/2014 20:04

I was looking to switch mortgage and I work in financial services.

I do understand why they're doing this, but when I agreed to a 15min call on my lunch break and the broker wondered why I was getting annoyed at 40 mins Hmm

Plus a bit of common sense please. I was requesting 2.5 times my salary (DP also earns a decent salary, if a bit less than me). Once I'd confirmed no DC, no loans, no credits card balances etc. why get annoyed that I don't know how much petrol I use a month (if varies), how much DP's phone contract costs and ask me what the TV license costs Hmm - those costs are not particularly relevant to two people on a reasonable income with no dependants seeking a low multiplier on a mortgage with a low LTV. and breathe

In all honesty, I know that I can get a mortgage given the above and my own background, but if they are really going to ask everyone about things like having a TV license then I worry that admin fees will increase across the board, making it more difficult for those who aren't as lucky as myself and DP. An in all honesty, if your TV license was the difference between making repayments and not then you're definitely over stretching...

MissMysticFalls · 28/04/2014 20:07

I'm in. I'm self employed so not sure how that's going to be treated in the new system. Hopefully not differently...

Original poster
SnowBells · 28/04/2014 22:05

Meeting with the financial advisor tomorrow. Let's see...

OP posts:
blueshoes · 28/04/2014 23:07

buggers, your post made me smile. I have an LTV of less than 50% and remortgaging at a significantly lower interest rate than my present so my monthly repayment is actually less. But I still have to go through all the affordability hoops. To be fair, I have significant childcare, school fees and other expenses, but all of that is budgeted for and I have been comfortably meeting for the last 2 years under the current mortgage. Yorkshire building society wanted to me to attend the interview in person and told me it would take 2 hours! I cancelled in the end and went with a more reasonable lender even though they had a higher rate because in the long run, I reckon it will be less hassle.

Frankly, if I did not do my sums at the time I took out the original mortgage, I should be shot.

What is most annoying is the insistence of the brokers/banks that they must discuss my insurance needs. Ostensibly to make sure I am covered (which I am) but is a thinly disguised ruse to sell me more insurance, particularly critical illness and income protection.

MissMysticFalls · 29/04/2014 08:22

blueshoes hmmm we don't have insurance (we have "family insurance" who will bail us out if we got stuck!). Do you think the mortgage lender will insist we need it then?

I've got at least six months mortgage payments aside in savings. I'd be seriously annoyed to give money to worry-mongerers/insurers.

blueshoes · 29/04/2014 08:28

MissMystic, I am not sure what family insurance is but whole of life term insurance is fairly inexpensive. Dh and I are covered under this insurance for the amount and term of the mortgage (so the mortgage is paid off if one of us dies). We are also each separately covered by death-in-service benefits of 4x our annual salaries.

We are not covered by any significant amount of critical illness or income protection cover because, like you, we have savings to fall back on. I never thought those policies are worth the cost, particularly since they don't always reliably pay out.

Your bank/broker is best placed to advise you on this ... Smile

CogitoErgoSometimes · 29/04/2014 09:28

"Frankly, if I did not do my sums at the time I took out the original mortgage, I should be shot."

Unfortunately, a significant number of other borrowers don't bother. They've been patting themselves on the back for getting big money out of lenders for a house but ending up living on a knife-edge with no saving cushion, resorting to credit cards for day-to-day stuff. Labour talk about a 'cost of living crisis' but I think a lot of it has been self-imposed.

noddyholder · 29/04/2014 10:25

I agree. One of the builders I work with remortgaged over and over as house prices rose and paid for his dd to go to private school. He is up shit creek now and she is no longer in the school.

blueshoes · 29/04/2014 10:30

Cognito, I am horrified that people would enter into such a large commitment without financial planning, but you are right in that there are probably people out there who don't know what their monthly outgoings are and what they can afford in terms of repayments.

I have just done my yearly review of bills and projected expenses (school fees going up yet again) and reconciled it against dh and my income. I don't think there is any household expense that my bank/broker could ask me about which I haven't already considered and budgeted for.

TheresLotsOfFarmyardAnimals · 29/04/2014 10:33

Ours is just going through this week. We have our approval in principle but hoping that it all goes through okay!

Ruby1080 · 29/04/2014 13:12

This reply has been deleted

The OP has privacy concerns about this post, so we've agreed to take it down.

CoolCat2014 · 29/04/2014 21:52

We've just been approved for our first mortgage, and got assessed on the new system. Most of it was fairly reasonable, apart from when they twigged that I was 16 weeks pregnant (now 22) and asked for detailed plans on length of maternity leave, childcare, return to work and letters from my employer confirming that I'd be allowed to return to work part time... All pretty stressful early in pregnancy and nearly got me in a mess with HR for requesting thing to be looked into that I don't have to sort out until I'm on maternity leave :(

It just seemed to take a really long time to sort out the mortgage, but being first time buyers maybe we didn't know what to expect? It's a pretty modest mortgage TBH, as house prices here are low and we got a good deposit.

JeggingsHateMe · 29/04/2014 22:03

As for wanting to fix a new deal once your current one ends, a lady in here who works in mortgages for a high street lender advised that if you are fixing with your current lender then it's a simple process and the rules will only affect you if you switch lender.

I called our lender this morning as I was concerned about this as we will be looking to fix again next year and whilst we have more disposable income now due to less outgoings, we are now in different jobs then we were when taking out our mortgage so I have been a little concerned. Our lender which is one of the main high street lenders told me that if We stayed with them that it would be a simple fix and we would not be put through the process of a new mortgage etc. Very helpful they were!

MissMysticFalls · 29/04/2014 23:05

Thanks blueshoes. "family insurance" is my shorthand for having family who will help us out if we need it Smile.

Well, we're going to be applying to Santander who have had details on their website for a while about what they want to know and the documents you need. I think because we budget our joint expenses we know exactly how much we spend on all those categories as a monthly average so that should help.

Original poster
SnowBells · 30/04/2014 01:50

OK. Mortgage advisor will be submitting to lender by Friday next week. From what we've been told, it didn't sound like too much trouble. I will report back once we know the result...

OP posts:
Sandthorn · 30/04/2014 08:50

"Frankly, if I did not do my sums at the time I took out the original mortgage, I should be shot."

Blueshoes, I think you have to keep in mind that there are people much less numerate than you, and who trusted that mortgage advisors were there to advise on affordability. Last time we sat down with a mortgage advisor was 2005, and we'd gone through our finances ourselves, and worked out our absolute limit! based on repayments! was £175k, though it would have been a squeeze. The "advisor" tried to persuade us we'd be fine to borrow double that. Confused Oh, and then they miss old us PPI. Hmm

I think I'd rather they were a bit over-careful than return to 2005. On the other hand, I'd be really worried if I was trying to get a fixed rate, now, to buffer an expensive mortgage I'd been talked into by a reckless/unscrupulous/stupid lender. Are we going to see a scramble to sell as interest rates rise? Or just a load more repossessions?

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