With all the new red tape that the government has imposed on the financial regulatory bodies mortgages are taking an interminable amount of time to process and, sometimes, an offer can take eight weeks to procure.
This is causing no end of difficulties to purchasers. As the market ‘hots up’ sellers will simply not wait for an extended period and will inevitably gazump buyers with cash purchasers who can move faster ‘off the blocks’.
You cannot totally blame the sellers since they also want to get on with their lives. The problem is that during this eight week hiatus even the solicitors and surveyors for the purchasers can’t do much until the mortgage offer is successfully received. Otherwise, if anything goes wrong, the buyer has to pick up the bill for abortive fees.
The application forms are tortuous in their detail and whilst we are not advocating a ‘splash the cash’ ‘free-for-all’ there must be something between the present system and what would be ideal whilst still maintaining good standards of procedure.
Less red tape is much needed here to protect the consumer rather than just the system.
Written by Trevor Abrahmsohn.
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