Brokers have called for faster mortgage application to completion times, and more transparency from lenders around which parts of the process are causing delays.
Accurate and comprehensive figures for how long the average transaction takes are not readily available, with the industry reluctant to dislose the data.
David Hollingworth, associate director at London & Country Mortgages, told FTAdviser his firm does monitor application times from the lenders it works with, but it is commercially sensitive and servicing times are affected by a range of factors.
“For example, those offering very keen rates can suffer slowing processing times as volumes increase – there’s some inevitability to that, but it can be harsh to denounce servicing when a lender is offering better products than its peers,” he said.
“Other factors, such as volume and the type of business can also play a part in timeframes, so a few cases that go off the rails can have a much bigger impact on average times for a smaller, low volume lender.”
Lenders that offer a more individual approach to underwriting and will take on more difficult cases can also look like longer processing, said Mr Hollingworth, while purchases can take much longer to reach completion than a straightforward remortgage for instance.
Higher paperwork requirements are also a factor, he said, as lenders demand evidence of income and employ tougher underwriting standards.
“That has the side-effect of lengthening timeframes and today’s borrower demands great rates and service. As a result lenders have worked hard to improve the consistency of their service to customers and speed up offer times.”
The intermediated mortgage market is playing catch-up with technology Henry WoodcockMichelle Lawson, director and mortgage adviser at Lawson Financial, said lender underwriting times rely on the experience of senior staff and the technology used.
Santander, BM Solutions, The Nottingham, Nationwide, Skipton and Halifax were good performers, she said, citing their document upload services. Clydesdale and Newcastle Intermediaries have been slower in her experience.
“I have a case in with Newcastle at the moment and each week it throws up a different request for information when the original application info remains unchanged. Why can’t they ask for it all at the outset with a ‘shopping list’ like other lenders?
“Clydesdale have a new document upload system, but does it all back to front and inside out,” Ms Lawson said, although she has been assured this is changing. “Most lenders now allow document upload/email, but when fax and post is used, the problems start again.”
Daniel Hegarty, chief executive and founder of digital broker Habito, agreed remortgages generally go through quicker - two to three days on average - as the underwriting is less intense. Conveyancing can still hold up the process, he said.
For house purchases he said the average is more like three to five days, with valuations taking anything up to a few weeks, along with frustrations around manual underwriting.
“Obviously we shouldn’t penalise lenders who take on tricky cases and carry out manual underwriting, but they should be able to do the basics properly, reducing the heavy lifting using technology,” stated Mr Hegarty.
“Legacy systems upon legacy systems are weighing some lenders down, often their broker portals clog up the system by forcing advisers to re-key information, which creates errors.”
Henry Woodcock, principal mortgage consultant at Iress, said that despite improvements, there are still a number of disconnects in the intermediary mortgage market due mainly to legacy issues.
“The market has evolved, but some of the technology systems have not kept pace,” he stated, pointing out from broker desktop, to fact-find to sourcing and applying to a selected lender could involve different systems and processes.
“Broker portals provide different levels of access and information, some give detailed real-time case tracking; others only milestones,” continued Mr Woodcock. “One of the main benefits of emerging ‘smart’ technology is it will be able to cater for each lender’s capability at a point in time.
“The intermediated mortgage market is playing catch-up with technology - but it will get there - and the customer experience will be measurably improved when it does.”
