Problems are mainly to do with renegotiating completion and moving dates. Forty four per cent of purchasers go through a broker to obtain their mortgage. Although this prolongs the period up to receipt of the mortgage offer, it has no effect on the overall length of the transaction. Mortgage checks and references are completed very speedily. Most take only a couple of days with some, such as credit ratings, being done immediately.
Some references can take far longer to obtain.
The maximum time for obtaining a reference from an existing mortgagee is nearly 14 weeks and 3 weeks to obtain an employer's reference. Lenders take 14 working days from receipt of the application to getting the offer out on a typical transaction. Most legal searches take only a few days from the solicitor requesting the information to receiving it. The exception to this is the local authority search that takes about 10 days. The consumer's view Consumer satisfaction with the buying and selling process drops sharply as the transaction proceeds.