Santander customers who have mortgage set to benefit from 'five day' rule

Santander mortgage customers have been handed a handy boost amid the Cost of Living crisis - after it emerged the bank was the QUICKEST for dealing with applications. Santander approves mortgages in five days on average - a week shorter than Nationwide, Virgin Money and Leeds Building Society.

Leeds Building Society, which has around 700,000 customers, says its average wait time between receiving a home loan application and approval is 11.8 days as of May 1. Virgin says online that its mortgage approval time frame averaged 11 days.

Nationwide and Barclays say they typically take 10 days to approve a mortgage. Nicholas Mendes, from broker firm John Charcol, said: "With mortgage rates increasing in recent weeks, there has been a slight reduction in applications as homebuyers delay committing to a deal in anticipation that the direction of mortgage rates will reduce over the next few months.

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"Market conditions have also meant that lenders have been more cautious in their pricing. This means having a considerably cheaper deal in the current market would inevitably result in a sudden influx of applications and that could impact their service levels."

"We are starting to see the influence of technology within the underwriting process, which significantly reduces the time from application to offer," he said. A spokesperson for Leeds Building Society said: "Leeds Building Society is committed to providing efficient and timely service and our customers tell us that we are doing so.

“Published timescales for processing mortgage applications are based on the last seven working days and are reflective of high volumes of mortgage applications and the complexity of individual cases. Our average mortgage application to offer processing time this year is ten days."

Coventry Building Society, HSBC and Santander take nine days, six days and five days with Skipton taking nine days, the Sun newspaper found.