What happens during a mortgage appointment?

After reading and hearing so many stories of people waiting months to get into their new home, we wanted to get the ball moving as soon as possible with things once our offer had been accepted.

Firstly, we needed to get our official mortgage offer. The Agreement In Principle (AIP), sorted at the very start of the process, is a sound way of understanding what it is that you can afford, and it's also needed to view properties as well - at least, that's what all estate agents asked us before booking us in to view properties.

We contacted Natwest, who we had the AIP with, to book our appointment. Appointments are taken up quickly, so it's wise to get this booked in as soon as possible so that even if something did come up, that meant you had to move the date, you wouldn't be waiting even longer.

Mortgage Appointment

With Natwest, you sit through two appointments. 

Before the first appointment, we were both asked to submit three months of payslips, three bank statements, our P60 and proof of our deposit. It shouldn't be too difficult to get all of that together, but if, like me, you have your savings in different accounts and different places, don't worry, submit evidence of each account, which should be fine.

These appointments were made remotely. The first over the phone and the second via Zoom. Both advisors that we dealt with were incredibly professional, down to earth and made us feel completely at ease with the process.

The appointments are more like semi-interviews, where you're quizzed on your finances. Do you have credit card debt? Have you ever been declared bankrupt? Where have your savings come from? That type of thing. It sounds more intrusive than it is. We weren't quizzed on our Deliveroo spend, thank god! But submitting your accounts in the days leading up to the appointment gives the mortgage advisor a chance to check over your account, and should there be any red flags, they can speak to you about them on the day.

Second Mortgage Appointment

Our second appointment came a week after, and this is the one where we got our mortgage offer. Here we discussed our mortgage options, what mortgage length we wanted and how much we were willing to spend on our monthly repayments. 

Given the state of the world and the increase in cost in almost everything, mortgage rates are changing all the time. The rate from our AIP to the offer we got was slightly different, so it's worth bearing that in mind if you're shopping around.

We'd had discussions before our appointment and before our search began, in all honesty, about what we wanted to pay and what length of mortgage we wanted. We'd settled on a two-year fixed deal beforehand, but the advisor spoke to us about a five-year fixed rate during the call. Even though this cost was more than what we'd pay on the two-year, given the turbulence of everything at the moment, we opted for the five-year as we felt this gave us more financial security in the long run.

Once we'd decided which mortgage we wanted to take, the documents were sent to us to sign electronically. You can choose to sign these there and then, or wait and mull them over. We decided to sign on the day because we were comfortable with what we'd been offered. It also meant that there would be no holdups. Also, we could pull out of our deal at any time at no cost, so there was no risk on our part.

Finally, before the call ended, we needed to discuss and arrange the survey for the property. I'll save details on choosing what survey is right for you for the next post, but we now had our mortgage offer boxed off, and things could get moving!

Protecting your house purchase with our low-cost Home Buyers Protection Insurance could save you from severe financial loss if your transaction was to fall through. Head over to our quote page to purchase insurance cover, or contact us today if you need further assistance and a member of our team will be on hand to help!