Could you give us an estimate as to how long the process took from your first contact with KBC to drawdown? Also, did you learn anything from the process that you would do differently if you were to refinance now? Finally, did you arrange everything yourself or did you go through a broker?
@Sarenco I have no issue in answering questions on this. I will set up a different post on it over the next few days and include a blog type thing of what happened at each step along the way.
In my particular case, there was a few complexities which slowed things down. House was in my name only as it was brought the week before we got married; KBC wanted joint mortgage/joint ownership for the family home. My wife has a house bought before we got married in negative equity, but on a low tracker mortgage. I am also self employed (independent IT consultant) which adds a little bit extra in the paperwork required. We also have two children in full time childcare due to start school in 2017 & 2018 respectively.
For me, it was 4 months from first contact to drawdown, although this could be done in 2 months except for complexity on self employed status in February (requiring lots of additional documentation to be issued and confusion on the banks side on what proof of employment meant) and BOI title deeds getting lost in early March and contract issue joint names on property issue in late March/early April. I assume most would not have the same issues.
Things I would do differently:
- Would have applied to a number of banks at the same time and got to Approval in Principle stage. At that point I would have asked they for their standard mortgage contract documentation for review, just in case there would be items in it I would not be too happy with. That said, I am used to reading contracts so it would be a bit easier for me
- Arrange for title deeds to be returned from bank once Approval in Principle has been received. It speeds up the entire process. The cost of ~60 euro is a bit like a valuation cost - needs to be done to move it forward
I did not go through a broker. I went into KBC hub and done it all with one of the people there. It was an easy enough process. That said I done the same for my original mortgage with BOI
Note: I also cancelled by credit card with BOI and moved that to KBC, and opened a current account with KBC as part of the process. I still have my BOI current account for the moment at least, but there are minimal transactions going through it at this stage (~3 a month currently)
Also worth noting that KBC are giving me 1,000 euro switcher rebate back off the first mortgage payment - so on 1st June I will pay 1000 less than normal. This might be useful for people wondering about cashflow issues.
The 1000 euro rebate did NOT cover the legal costs of the move for me. I have yet to get the final bill, but will be closer to 1600 euro + 127 for the valuation. That said I got 230 off my house insurance for the year, so net cost me ~ 500 euro to switch. Also note I did NOT use the solicitor as for the original house purchase.