Review as at 05 May 2025: To a customer, a bank is as good as the employees that deals with the customer. I have been fortunate enough to be dealing with bank colleague Shazia Essa as my primary contact. She understood the urgency of my application and while the bank process, annual leaves and holidays, can’t be avoided, in high and sight, my application took 3 working days to be processed. That means, apply, send to underwriter, receive queries from underwriter, answer them satisfactorily with follow-ups and instruct valuation. These all were done from Wednesday morning of previous week and Monday morning next week. I was fortunate to get a valuation date quickly, but from the date the valuation took place, it took another 2 days to issue the offer. So, 5 working days from application to Mortgage Offer. Once the offer is signed, then the solicitors are instructed.I did not have the most straight forward circumstances so I was totally wowed by the speed. Specially, when I didn’t get such a turn-around even when employing a Mortgage Broker in the past for conventional mortgage. Tell you what, you really don’t need a Mortgage Adviser if Shazia is fortunately assigned to deal with your application. Save yourself a grand or 2 avoiding a Mortgage Broker for Gatehouse.My main contention to go with Gatehouse Bank was the speed of the process as per reviews. I was almost in 2 minds and considered Stride-up for the speed as their speed was really good when I contacted them. However, the cost difference didn’t justify the change in mind so I stuck to Gatehouse and it was a good decision. The Bank must have significantly updated their systems, put more resources and equipped competent colleagues like Shazia to do their job efficiently as my application was a quick responded one.Yes, the bank does ask for a lot of information and it has frustrated me. This is not to be confused with that these questions are coming from the Bank colleagues (in my case Shazia). Shazia explained me well that she is asking all these indepth questions because a) the application form requires and b) the underwriter otherwise will raise queries on these matters and this will delay the process.While it may feel waste of time, I really found the pre-application process of submitting documents for vetting, very useful. This bit takes place after Decision in Principle but before paying for application. There was no charge for this pre-assessment that but the sheer amount of work Shaz and her colleagues did at this stage before the application without me having to pay yet, was truly helpful. It is almost as if they were setting me up for success. Nevertheless, I did voice my frustration to the colleagues during the process about the amount of info requested and it was being requested in drip by drip. I truly understand why customers like me choose Gatehouse or Stride-up. I am impressed with the motivation of such customers who left competitive mortgage interest rates of high-street due to riba and opted for Gatehouse and Stride-up for alternative finance. One must have such courage to spend almost 20 – 30% more for buying a property with alternative finance. There is an application fee, valuation fee, product fee, Early Redemption Charge plus a fee of £400 at the point of redemption. This is coupled with high solicitor’s fee as you have to instruct a solicitor that has Gatehouse in their panel. Alternative finance whether with Gatehouse or Stride-up is no where near competitive.Gatehouse is an option in market and it is a choice you are unlikely to regret. Certainly, I know I didn’t regret. If avoiding interest based mortgage is essential, certainly give Gatehouse a try. I certainly found very speedy response for my application.
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Gatehouse Bank plc is a Shariah-compliant challenger bank based in London and is part of the Gatehouse Financial Group of companies.
