What is your experience with Nationwide Mortgages? Worried

[User210903]

So I put an offer on a house. I applied for a mortgage through a broker with Halifax and it got declined (they didnt give a reason but I think it's because I applied half-heartedly). I am now applying with Nationwide I am applying for a mortgage on solo income on my primary job. No financial commitments and no debts. I had some debts which was a condition in my agreement in principle to pay off and my family helped clear all those debts off (my credit score was fair but after paying off debts I don't know if the score gets better or worse?)

I have submitted the application and waiting for their response but it's absolutely agonizing! It's painful and I can't stop thinking about all the potential loopholes etc. It is consuming my energy and I can't do anything else. What has been your experience with getting a mortgage? Is is easy or hard?

Part of the purchase price is a gifted deposit from my sisters. I have worked so hard in gathering all the forms/documents/evidence when applying for this mortgage and it is literally consuming my mental and emotional energy.

The valuation has been done and came back fine, just waiting for the mortgage offer to come through.

I am just worried about a couple of potential loopholes, I don't know if I am overthinking it:

• I recently moved to a new address and I sent a copy of my HMRC letter as evidence of address but my broker said it might be a problem if they dont accept that letter. Will they reject the mortgage offer outright or give me a chance to amend the proof of address?
• My bank statement has the total amount of my savings..which I am putting down as a deposit. E.g. £30,000 deposit and my bank account has £30,100 in my account. Is that going to be a problem? I am worrried that nationwide might say I dont have enough money to cover my current expenses/solicitor payments etc but my parents are helping with that as I am living with family/friends.
• The gift deposit is from a joint account from my sister with her husband. I rang nationwide and they did say they accept that and consider it as '1' applicant.
• The fact that I got rejected by Halifax, will that be an issue?

I am just panicking but apart from the above points, I can't think of any reason why they would reject the application. I have been working at my job for a good 15 years now and I am putting in a 18% deposit.

Please help!

Dunno, but what jumps out at me is that people are giving you money. Why aren't you able to be independent? Why do you only have £100 on top of what's been given to you? I'd address that regardless of what the outcome is.

@something2say this is a strange comment. Just because a family member has gifted OP money doesn't mean to say she isn't independent. I moved out of my parents house when I was 19 and have been renting on my own for the last 9 years with just my income covering all the bills. I have always tried to put some money away each month as a safety set, but it would certainly never be enough for a deposit and being single makes it a lot harder to get a mortgage as they will only lend so much. Luckily my dad gifted me 40k a few months ago which will enable me to buy somewhere in the new year when (hopefully) prices come down, otherwise I would have really struggled to get on the ladder.

Sorry I haven't answered your question OP, just thought that was a very judgemental comment.

@Mostlycloudytoday Thank you for your comment, @something2say your comment made me panic even more!

@something2say Just for clarity, £12,100 is my own money..The remaining is gifted deposit so I am saving up. I am not being careless. I have just saved enough to put down a deposit.

Do you have the letter to state it's a gift and not a loan?

And have you had the meeting with the bank where they gmail through your expenditure to see if you meet affordability? That would have flagged/dealt with the £100 leftover issue

@23Oct And have you had the meeting with the bank where they gmail through your expenditure to see if you meet affordability? That would have flagged/dealt with the £100 leftover issue

What is this bit??? I have never heard of this before...

I think it will probably be okay, but I'd be a bit concerned that you only had a hundred quid in savings to deal with costs. Your family may have agreed to pay that, but the bank don't have any guarantee of that...

@Cumberbiatch To clarify the savings include £12,100 and remaining savings is a gift deposit

Do you mean I should be worried with how to pay off solicitor fees etc? If the process to buy the house is another 2 months. Then can I not use my next pay check to cover off those fees etc?

It's not just about the deposit and fees, it's about being able to pay the costs over the next 25 years (or however long the mortgage is).

It's difficult to know that from your post but you say that you're living with family/friends - how much is that costing and how does it compare to the monthly mortgage payments plus insurance (life insurance, buildings insurance) plus money for maintaining the property.

I went through Nationwide directly. A lovely woman helped me through the process. As a single parent I was worried I’d fail on several levels Incl affordability and money given as a gift.

Any queries she had were rectified and I got my mortgage approved. She was great and reassured me.

@PositiveLife So my monthly pay packet will help pay off the mortgage with money to spare.

For life insurance/building insurance - do I need this money in my bank account now? Or can it way until my next pay packet? I have used all my savings on the deposit hence my question

The property is ready to move in

@Rummikub How long did it take from valuation to offer?

@User210903 It was years ago I’m sorry I can’t remember. I do remember she contacted me several times to clarify different things.

I can’t comment on your particular situation, but we got a NatWest mortgage last year. We had a panic with the valuation - there was a crack in the wall so they said they couldn’t put a value on our place in case it was subsidence. We had a report on that that we could send them and once they received that (even though I was worried it was a bit weak because it didn’t give any guarantees) they moved very quickly and it all went through easily. So for us it was slow and stressful for a while but then got sorted very quickly, even though I was concerned there were grounds they would refuse us on.

Sorry, I'm not clear- I'm thinking that they'll need to see a buffer of savings that aren't going to be eaten up by your deposit. These are moving costs, insurance, solicitor and also to cover anything that might go wrong when you've moved in. For example, I'm looking to get a mortgage soon and I'm planning to keep maybe 6 or 7 grand savings to deal with costs etc- I know this is a hell of a lot of money, but it's unfortunately how much things can cost if you have just one thing going wrong, like a boiler breakdown or unforseen damp/roof issues.

@User210903 don't worry about people being judgemental on here. If they want to see 30k in your bank account to cover the deposit, they won't care that you only have £100 over the 30k currently in your account. It will be a box ticked that you have proof of having the 30k.

If they aren't happy with your proof of address, they will contact you to ask you to submit a different form of id like a driving licence, utility bill, etc

Nationwide have already confirmed that they are ok with your sisters gift coming from a joint account so don't worry about that.

It's a shame you got rejected by Halifax but different lenders do have different criteria and it sounds like you have put more effort this time into providing all the correct information and clearing your debts before applying. It can take weeks and weeks but hopefully you should be fine.

You can check your credit score for free on credit karma.
I had to go through affordability checks upon application and send 3 months bank statements and pay slips.
I have never had to show that I have funds to cover moving costs, solicitors fees etc (which were in premium bonds not my bank account). Not sure why the lender would care about that.

Usually with insurance you renew a policy each year and can either pay for the year upfront or pay monthly. For example, my buildings insurance is around £200 a year but it's a condition of the mortgage that I have it. Similarly, life insurance is also a condition of my mortgage.

I'm surprised that your broker hasn't explained all this.

The bank have a duty to make sure that you meet affordability criteria and they have different ways of doing that for a variety of circumstances. For example, I applied as a single parent and they wouldn't approve me for a 25 year mortgage but would approve a 30 year mortgage (even though I could actually afford the 25 year one) because that particular bank considered my childcare costs as solely my responsibility despite a court order splitting it with my Ex-husband (because in the bank's view, if he got hit by a bus, I'd have to pay all of it to continue working).

Neither have I and I've bought six properties and had at least one Nationwide mortgage.

You are assessed prior to valuation, before they spend your fee. So if you have been honest and nothing comes to light, they should not reject if valuation ok.
they do credit checks very early. Ombudsman would not like them wasting your money, if they knew they could not help. Sounds like you will be ok .
years of experience here and things do go wrong , ut that is the basic procedure

Time from valuation depends on state of property and if there is anything else outstanding. Keep on your brokers tail he is getting paid for this

Our mortgage is with Nationwide and DH is a mortgage adviser. Can you ask for the reason your previous application was decline? Both the lender as well as your financial adviser should tell you why your mortgage was declined, if they can’t or won’t then you can actually make a formal complaint.

Without knowing why your application with Halifax declined it’s impossible to say whether this one will be the same. Have you checked your credit file? If there’s something on there which caused Halifax to decline, then Nationwide will also decline. Affordability issues are a big one so do you have a car on finance, do any other items on finance, any credit card debt, what is your income vs outgoing every month, if the reason it declined is that it fails on affordability then it will also decline with Nationwide. Have you looked back at your previous application to see if there’s any mistakes on there? If so, that could be the reason it declined.

There’s absolutely loads of reasons it would decline, without knowing the exact reason nobody can say if Nationwide would be different. It took about 10 days for us to receive our mortgage offer from Nationwide once the full application was done.

I took out my mortgage a couple of years ago and found nationwide to be a bit slower with communication about the process\approval but ok in the end. I had to provide 3 payslips, proof of deposit etc. but no proof for how I’d pay the solicitor or other costs, I don’t think they care as long as you can pay their bit back.

I don't think your concerns about the deposit/evidence etc will be an issue. I would be concerned about your credit score only being fair but also sounds like you've passed the credit scoring stage as that's usually done at application pre valuation. Is that the stage you failed at with Halifax? They'll be checking the valuation and maybe going through your bank statements to check income/expenses and affordability.

Hi Everyone

Just want to say a huge thank you to every single comment, I have read all of them and soaked up all the knowledge like a sponge. I can only wait and see and pray for the best!