Quirk of the mortgage market?

[tell-me-more]

I ring up a broker, he gives me an agreement in principle to borrow 4.6 x my salary with RBS.

I ring up RBS, they can't lend me anywhere near as much.

How can that be so?

[kempie]

An "agreement in principle" is not a formal mortgage offer and may be subject to change or withdrawal.

The test would be to see if your broker can, in actuality, fulfill his end of the agreement.

[Priesty]

Is your income made up of any overtime? If so, they will only generally do 4.6 times your basic salary and maybe use 50% of any overtime, this may be where the discrepancy has occured.

[chas2008]

kempie, is spot on, brokers earn commission they often say yes so they dont lose your custom then worry about it later..It happened to me a few years ago lots of promises then after 3 weeks of waiting when i assumed everything was ok couldnt come with the required loan/mortgage.Total waste of time that i could of used finding an alternative.

[tell-me-more]

Mystery solved. The product is "The One Account" which RBS told me is kind of separate.