If you have decided to use a mortgage to finance your own home, your first steps will be to see a mortgage adviser from a particular bank or an independent mortgage broker. At the first meeting, you will be given as much information as possible, which will be used by the mortgage specialist to prepare an offer. He or she will be particularly interested in what you plan to use the mortgage money for, the amount of the loan and the planned term of the mortgage.
Based on the information obtained, the mortgage specialist will prepare several offers and consult possible solutions. If you decide to take advantage of one of the offers, the mortgage calculation will be finalized. In the next step, the mortgage specialist will sign a mortgage application with you. In this document, you do not commit to taking out a loan from the bank, but only say what you are specifically interested in and agree to consult bank and non-bank registers. Usually within 24 hours, the bank will tell you the result of the so-called scoring.
Documents required for mortgage approval
After successful scoring, it is necessary to prepare all documents necessary for mortgage approval (e.g. income certificate, property value estimate, etc.). The mortgage specialist then forwards all the documents to the bank and the approval process begins. The approval time varies from bank to bank and can take several weeks. If you are approved for a mortgage loan, the bank will send you the loan documentation for review, which the mortgage specialist will go over with you. Banks often use form contracts with clearly defined terms and any interference with the wording is not possible in most cases.
Signing the contract and taking out the loan
If you agree to the terms, you need to sign the loan agreement. You can do this at a bank branch, at a broker or at the post office or at a notary with a notarized signature. Again, it depends on the provider, as each has its own specifics. Once you have signed the loan agreement, the bank will provide you with a mortgage loan that you can start drawing down. Make sure you draw down the loan without any problems. As a rule, you need to draw down at least 80% of the loan amount, otherwise the bank may charge you a penalty. The terms of the drawdown are precisely described in the loan agreement.
The time it takes to arrange a mortgage varies from case to case. Each loan is unique and depends on how quickly you are able to prepare the necessary documents and communicate with the bank, for example. A stress-free mortgage can be comfortably arranged in 2 to 3 months.
