Mortgages in Tenerife – The Application
When you apply for a Mortgage in Tenerife, whether you are using a Mortgage Broker or going directly to a bank, your application will go through 3 key stages:
- Stage One – Mortgage Application. After an initial consultation with a local bank, the bank´s mortgage advisor will tell that you can get a mortgage or you can maybe get a mortgage. it is quite rare that they will decline you at this stage. They will now ask you to collect various documentation proving your income, identification, credit report and various other things.
- Stage Two – The Branch Decision. Once the bank has everything they need to make a decision, they will inform you. You will be told Yes, or No. Sounds simple, except it isn´t. The reason this is not straightforward is that most banks in Tenerife (unless they are Canarian banks) do not have the authority to underwrite Spanish mortgages. They cannot make the decision at branch level. Those banks that still can make branch level mortgage approvals are always limited to a specific amount so maybe they can approve any standard mortgage under say, 100,000€ but anything above this needs to go to the underwriters first.
- Stage Three – The Underwriter. Your mortgage is now sent to the banks underwriter – this is not an underwriter in Tenerife but an underwriter for the entire Spanish mortgage division, usually in mainland Spain. The underwriters job is to assess your mortgage, assess you as a client and calculate your risk profile, that is – How likely are you to default on your mortgage in the future? Are you the kind of client that our bank wants? Do you meet our risk profile? This is where the real decisions are made and this is where everything can go wrong.
An approval at branch level does not mean you will be approved by the banks underwriter. Whilst an approval at branch level indicates that you meet the banks general profile, the branch staff are not nearly as qualified to judge the risk as an underwriter is and quite often the underwriter will find errors in the case which may affect the amount you can borrow, worse still, they may actually decline the mortgage entirely.
This whole process can take up to 6 weeks at the end of which you may have no mortgage, no idea what to do and quite possible have put down a deposit – which is now at risk if you cannot find another bank to approve your mortgage application.
What can you do to avoid this? Well, there is a simple solution. We can look at your mortgage application, advise you of our opinion on how likely you are to qualify and submit your case only to those banks we believe will accept you. This means you are more likely to succeed with your Spanish mortgage application first time. We will also tell you when you can safely pay a deposit on a property and how to pay a deposit risk free. So, if for any reason, the bank does decline you and you are unable to raise a mortgage elsewhere, your money is not at risk.
We have completed on thousands of Spanish Mortgages, we use over 30 Spanish banks for mortgages in Tenerife. We have over 100 products at our disposal and can save you a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of hassle.
There is no safer way to purchase property with a Tenerife mortgage.
