Santander mortgage application

[hullywully]

So, I will try and simplify a long story. We have our mortgage application in and the survey has been done. We've been told the underwriters now have it back and they may take 4-5s to piece everything together. Can anyone tell me what they actually do in this time? They already had the application before the survey was done and I'm guessing the credit/affordability checks have all been done? Just thought I'd ask as we've gone through a broker and I don't want to keep asking them when I can ask you lovely people :-)
Many thanks

Oh and finally: how long should I expect it to be between mortgage offer and exchange. We are not in a chain at all and the house is currently empty.

TIA
HW.

Our mortgage was approved within 48 hours of the survey. 3 weeks after we applied.

But it wasn't with Santander..... and we haven't exchanged yet....

We've recently had a mortgage approved by Santander but it took almost 4 weeks between application and offer as they apparently have a bit of a backlog. They did the survey in the week following receipt of the application but came back to us twice asking for further information which meant our application went to the back of the queue each time - very frustrating!

We got our offer two weeks ago, instructed solicitors the next day and we're just waiting to hear from them with contracts, etc. No idea when exchange might be yet.

We put our application with Santander end of Jan. They did valuation week later and we got our offer after another week, so in total 2 weeks time. However recently we had to get revised offer as we managed to reduce the purchase price and it took almost two weeks before we got our revised offer!

We got our formal offer from Santander within two weeks of submitting the application, however we were very straightforward with our situation. Exchange was around 2 months later. This was very recently, we just moved in last week.

Thanks very much all. It looks as though we should hear back from them at the beginning of next week then as that will have been 3 weeks total time. I was shocked that they didn't just send out the offer after the valuation had been done because that all happened within 3-4 days. Hey ho, I guess it's another week of my life living on a knife edge.

After all of this we are hoping to exchange ASAP but then hold off actually moving in for 3-4 weeks due to notice having to be given on our house, does this sound about right? After you've exchanged you can decide the completion date right?

Thanks for all your comments they've actually made me feel calmer.

Getting your mortgage sorted and your valuation/survey back tends to be the quick part (in my limited experience). Now comes the super slow part of getting everybody's solicitors to deal with each-other/you/the sellers in something close to an efficient timescale. We received our full mortgage offer in mid March and only just exchanging this week...hopefully. We have nothing to sell and the seller isn't buying anything else so I guess we're what would be classed as simple. It's a long, very old fashioned process - the industry advertised time scale is 8-12 weeks.

All parties must agree the completion date before exchange can take place.

Our mortgage offer in March took four weeks with Santander. We are hopefully exchanging tomorrow so five weeks since we had our mortgage offer through. Good luck

Brilliant thanks very much for that. I guess you're right in that the slow part is still to come. I just wish my broker would keep me updated with the process as it really suffering, just waiting.
It's interesting that we have to agree a completion date before we exchange. I'm guessing the couple selling the house will want that ASAP, whereas we want to stall for a few weeks. Only thing we could do is give our notice in our house before we exchange... with a 1 and a 2 year old we are very reluctant.

I wouldn't hand your notice in until exchange if I were you. Our completion date has taken ages for everyone to agree on and has changed three times which is why we finally exchange tomorrow. Of course if your landlord can be flexible then let them know now.