Saving/Applying for a mortgage 2015/16/17/18/19

I have been saving 1200 a month for the last 2 years,
I then had to open a new joint account about 6 months ago and transfer all the savings into the new “mortgage savings account aka joint savings account”
I also have another savings account for “legal fees and stamp Duty”

Should I just mix all the money together from the two accounts and transfer everything into “mortgage savings”

I intend on upping my savings now to 1750 a month and applying for a mortgage in April/may.

Basically my savings accounts are a bit messy and I just want what’s easiest for the banks. By the time I go to apply I’ll be printing out statements for 4/5 accounts.

Income
Billing
Mortgage saving
Legal fees
Old mortgage savings account (showing older transactions)

Basically it’s all over the place. Help!

Bigmac1euro wrote: »

Basically my savings accounts are a bit messy and I just want what’s easiest for the banks. By the time I go to apply I’ll be printing out statements for 4/5 accounts.

Income
Billing
Mortgage saving
Legal fees
Old mortgage savings account (showing older transactions)

Basically it’s all over the place. Help!

Well with my wife we had to provide our individual and joint bank statements.

Joint Current
Joint Savings (we usually use this for holiday savings but have now set it up for the booking deposit).

Credit Union - each (2)
Own personal current (2)
Revolut (mine)
Mortgage Saver

So 4-5 seems quite normal although I don't really use the credit union account now because I had transferred the funds to the Mortgage Saver.

I think a Mortgage Saver and one account to allow for quick transfer like the savings account is enough.

Ayan Prickly Road wrote: »

The BOI fixed rates as given here: https://personalbanking.bankofirelan...ortgage-rates/

Are the figures stated their Green Mortgage rates or not does anyone know? I'm on a 5 year fixed with BOI but our rate is 3.2% as opposed to the 3% stated there. If their current rate is 3%, could we get a reduction in our rate? We are not eligible for the Green Mortgage anyway.

You're locked into that rate until the end of the fixed period. I'm fixed at 2.6 for four years with UB but they are now offering the 2.6 for five years.

If your fixed is nearly up they might be worth a look as that would be a good saving.

Ayan Prickly Road wrote: »

I'm on a 5 year fixed with BOI but our rate is 3.2% as opposed to the 3% stated there. If their current rate is 3%, could we get a reduction in our rate?

Paul_Mc1988 wrote: »

You're locked into that rate until the end of the fixed period. I'm fixed at 2.6 for four years with UB but they are now offering the 2.6 for five years.

A fixed rate mortgage only means there could be a penalty fee to redeem the mortgage early. Over the last while, the Central Bank has changed the way banks are allowed to calculate these fees, and a lot of the time there is little to no penalty applied for early redemption.

Request the 'break fee' amount and calculation from the bank (say you are thinking of switching mortgages to another bank). Based on the response, it may be financially worth your while paying a small (or no fee) to get on the lower rate for an extended amount of time.

It might just save you a few quid in 2020 :-) Better in your pocket than the banks

Does anyone have any experience on how much the banks scrutinise your bank account for not first time buyers?

The situation is we will be applying for a mortgage in a few months. We sold our property a few months ago and are renting atm. We know what property we will be buying and we will need a mortgage 2.3 times our joint salary and we have the 20% deposit sitting in the bank. We currently pay rent at about the level the mortgage will be and save another 2k a month on top of that.

So I feel we are in a pretty good position. However, when we applied for our mortgage as first time buyers a few years ago we had a lot of comments and pushback on the fact that we had a lot of transactions on our debit cards. None of it was gambling or big nights out or anything like that but banks were very sniffy about it. Which is stupid imo as that's what the cards are for and we were putting savings away every month and not touching it.

That is still the case for us - we put savings away and then have a bit of disposable income which we use - shopping online, eating out etc. I'm just wondering if banks are still likely to be funny about this and should be do what other people do and resort to taking cash out so they can't see all the transactions? I feel like we are a pretty safe bet and they shouldn't focus on this but I also want to make the process as stress free as possible.

Woshy wrote: »

Does anyone have any experience on how much the banks scrutinise your bank account for not first time buyers?

The situation is we will be applying for a mortgage in a few months. We sold our property a few months ago and are renting atm. We know what property we will be buying and we will need a mortgage 2.3 times our joint salary and we have the 20% deposit sitting in the bank. We currently pay rent at about the level the mortgage will be and save another 2k a month on top of that.

So I feel we are in a pretty good position. However, when we applied for our mortgage as first time buyers a few years ago we had a lot of comments and pushback on the fact that we had a lot of transactions on our debit cards. None of it was gambling or big nights out or anything like that but banks were very sniffy about it. Which is stupid imo as that's what the cards are for and we were putting savings away every month and not touching it.

That is still the case for us - we put savings away and then have a bit of disposable income which we use - shopping online, eating out etc. I'm just wondering if banks are still likely to be funny about this and should be do what other people do and resort to taking cash out so they can't see all the transactions? I feel like we are a pretty safe bet and they shouldn't focus on this but I also want to make the process as stress free as possible.

When I switched my mortgage a few years back, we did not have many questions on our general spending patterns. They asked about all standing orders (that were not obvious) and any payments over 250 euro. We would have a 'reasonable' spending pattern also, but were overpaying the mortgage by 1000 euro a month at the time and had a LTV <50%. That was a switcher mortgage though, rather than a second time buyer one !

zweton wrote: »

I have been hearing great things about EBS as a mortgage provider, as in very good to deal with and not too strict. Anyone currently using them or used in the past?

EBS are linked with AIB so their criteria is the same as AIB. So you have similar level of customer service which I do find very good.

I had to renew my AIP recently with Ulster Bank. Applied to EBS and BOI at same as well as liked their cash back. EBS were lovely to deal with and quick. However I was able to get a exemption with Ulster Bank whereas EBS I wasn’t. Also found EBS had raised silly queries on paperwork that Ulster Bank and BOI didn’t. And they were really stupid questions.

zweton wrote: »

Ah ok get ya, good to know. When you say exemption do you mean to increase the amount you want to borrow?

Yes - banks have some scope to allow you to borrow up to 4.5 times instead of 3.5 times if your a first time buyer. But every bank is different in assessing you for exemptions. BOI and KBC offered us more than 3.5 times where EBS wouldn’t.

If you get AIP from AIB can you also get it from EBS?

When we got our mortgage as first time buyers we had one unpaid direct debit in our accounts. It was just a timing issue, I'd forgotten to transfer money over to an account - the direct debit was paid a few days later. It as for about e25 I think. However, PTSB reduced the amount they would lend us by 30k because of this unpaid direct debit. They told us the best thing was to wait 2-3 months and apply again when this was no longer on our statements.

We went with another bank in the end who didn't have an issue with it but it's something to keep in mind if you're preparing to apply for a mortgage.

wolfyboy555 wrote: »

If you get AIP from AIB can you also get it from EBS?

Yes, you can, I got AIP from both before. While EBS is part of the AIB group they are still separate lenders and offer different products and rates.

flipflophead22 wrote: »

Good info here, im 40 and looking to apply this year with my partner for a mortgage. Am I right in saying the max I can get is 25 year mortgage? My age will go against me I guess.

My husband is 37 (about to turn 38) and we were told the max term we could get is 33 years - I was just on the phone to the bank 20 minutes ago about it. So I think you could get 30 years - worth looking into anyway.

We had to get a 19 year term when my oh was 46

guy101 wrote: »

I’m about to submit paperwork to EBS.
Does anyone know what their view on returned direct debits?
Just after spotting it on my statement from November 19. Similar situation to the poster above.
Nightmare if I’m going to have to wait another five months!
We’re currently saving 3.2x what our proposed mortgage payment will be.

We actually went with EBS in the end and they didn't say anything to us about it. That was 5 years ago