Well, the whole situation this week is now making me laugh, though I do have one hell of a headache today.

Trying to get a top up on our current Woolwich mortgage for a new house we are buying - dont want to stay with them, but trying to avoid the £2500 penalty fee until October.

Been on the phone all week trying to sort it out, and its now at the ROFLMAO stage. I've been self employed for nearly 2 years now, year 1 I made enough to pay the bills, run a car and have a few beers. This second year I have made 5 times that amount so I am now comfortable and live a good life.

However, the Woolich will only accept year 1 accounts, even though my accountant has sent them figures in so far for this year, and guaranteed income figures for year end (i.e. monies owing + income so far + projected income til April).

The Woolwich have been phoning every day asking for more info. They have just phoned now to ask if I have an employment contract Er no, i'm self employed

This Welsh bird keeps going back to the underwriter, who comes back with more stupid questions, so I am now wondering what "underwriters" are like???? Young, old, stuck up accounting types or what? Anyone doit for a living?

The mortgage we are asking for is relatively small, and to be honest 1 years income from my wife and I would cover it. This month alone I have made 10 x what the monthly payment would be, but still they refuse.

So our IFA is coming Monday, to hopefully get a new mortgage deal sorted and just pay the sodding Woolwich fee.

Rant over, dont use the Woolwich [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

 

Another thing, I feel like I am being discriminated against. If they refused me because I was a woman, or coloured, or fat there would be an outcry.

The self employed get a raw deal, even though there is no chance of me being sacked or made redundant

 

Mate you would not beleive the nightmare i went through with the Woolwich trying to sort out the Open Plan reserve account. Lost application forms, denial that I even completed it in the branch in front of the manager, then all record of the application disappeared and reappeared 8 weeks later on someones desk, and as I hadnt sighned it, it was out of date and I had to start the whole application again !!!!

Suffice to say that as soon as September comes and we are out of the penalty clause time, I will be using another lender.

Dave

 

No 1 problem is:

Its the Woolwich you're dealing with!

Took me 6 months to get an advance of 18grand - prize muppets they are

 

hi mate what are they saying about your income all you have to do to see if you can qualify for a loan of a certain amount and your earnings are enough is to get the sum you need and divide it by 3.25 thats how much you need to be earning so tell the banks that and get ya self to hsbc they are good

 

Underwriters = 21-30 with 1 or 2 weeks training. Questions are system prompted. The average high street lenders always have difficulty with self employed because it's more work.

 

If your self employed then why not go with their self cert mortgage?

 

My first Mortgage was with the Woolwich over eight years ago and never have I delt with a bigger bunch of Muppets that did not know who is doing what, why and when. Going from my own experiance it is very worrying really to think of how much Money they are in control of and thinking of the **** ups that must still happen to this day.

 

DW - If it less than 75% LTV they should let you do it self cert. It takes 5 years as a junior underwriter to become a senior underwriter with the Woolwich - All the juniors do is tick boxes and ask questions - when they have no questions left they refer it to a senior underwriter, who have been known to be nearly normal on some occasions. Going through a broker has a massive advantage in that they will probably know most of the senior underwriters already and can get your case looked at more quickly. (This does not guarantee a better outcome - only a quicker one) Your main problem is that being an existing client, you get passed to the sales team first (wannabe underwriters) who try out their new found filling in application form skills and send it to a junior underwriter to weed out all the **** ups they have made. On average this will take about 4 million calls. Said junior underwriter will then try to demonstrate their prowess by getting your application refused so thay they can show they know the difference between a good risk and a bad one. (Ever notice why Woolwich always have the best deals? They only lend to 'perfect' risks, so they lose next to nothing on default) As a rule you can choose from three types of mortgage. Quick, cheap and hassle-free. Woolwich only do cheap - but if you know how to work the system it can be quick as well (My average turnaround for application to offer with the Woolwich is about 12 days including surveys)
If you want quick and hassle free can I suggest Trafalgar Homeloans - Will accept 6 months self employed and no accounts - will lend money if you stand near them - main problem is that the best deals start at 7.75% with a three year extended redemption period

I would suggest that you should wait it out until you get a definitive answer from the Woolwich. Unless you earn in excess of 125k a year then a week off work answering daft questions will be worth it to avoid the redemption penalty. A week AT work answering the question will be even more worth it :

 

I took my first mortgage out with the woolwich two years ago and it was a complete nightmare. Sounds as though nothings changed. They do have very good deals but no customer care at all.

 

yes, they have good deals and yes their 'customer care' is non existant. I applied to get the top-up sorted on our mortgage because I didn't do it at the time of sorting the mortgage out. I took the forms and all relevant payslips into the branch personally and was told it would be sent straight off. 4 weeks later I ring the call centre to find out where the money is - they hadn't received the forms. Turns out that the prat at the branch hadn't sent them off and had since left. They then wanted more payslips - I didn't have them because I hadn't yet been paid for that month that they wanted - my arguement was you had all the relevant paperwork before - why should I be messed about again because of their carelessness. I did tell them that I expected the arrangement fee to be refunded and it was.

 

guys and gals - I have to say - most of you seem to have been victim of the branch monkey - These people get paid every week, regardless of how ****e they are. Underwriters get promoted based on the % of loan to default, and brokers only get paid about two months after the mortgage has complete. Tell me who has the incentive to get it spot on first time every time?



[me thinks - do I want to **** about, spend 10 hours chasing paperwork and get paid in August, or will I do it right now, spend 30 minutes and get paid in April]

 

as deano said.. Self Cert Mortgage??.. or is that what you want to swap to anyway?

 

It's alright repeating the self-cert route but as I understood it he wants to remain with what he has till October to avoid charges.

Come October he is free to do what he wants.

£2500 is £2500 and so it's really up to you whether or not you think it's worth giving away.

Maybe you are nearly there, persevere I say and don't give the useless fools easy money.

In October you can then remind them of how useless they were.

 

Thanks all, got an IFA to come round Saturday morning cos the guy we are buying the house off was getting jittery.

He sorted us a good deal with Nationwide, and said he will have an answer tonight/tomorrow.

Just going to pay the Woolwich fee now - £1500 of it was cashback originally, so the real penalty is £1k - worth it to get away from the Woolwich.

Thanks to fast bloke for good ongoing advice as well