Digital mortgage service sounds handy, right? Oh, it's through UK.gov's Verify

The UK government is cracking on with plans for a digital mortgage service to be launched this year, which will allow borrowers to sign mortgage deeds online via the Government Digital Service's deeply flawed Verify identity programme. Greg Clark, Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, said: "[The …

[Anonymous Coward]

This is like that 'Verified-by-Visa' clusterfuck

"It's unclear what value Verify gives if the Verify ID companies have no liability and the Land Registry is still going to do its own checks anyway."

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when I took out my first mortgage (~30 years ago) not only did I have to get my signature witnessed but the witness also had to observe me placing my thumb on a designated circle beside the signature with "the intention of affixing a seal"

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't be worse than our mortgage advisor, who not only couldn't spell, but applied for the *wrong* type of mortgage in our name.

We eventually managed to get the mortgage we wanted, *after* the rate had gone up by 0.1%, so filed a complaint with his employers to get compensation for the difference in our mortgage payments.

That debacle put back our house purchase by nearly 4 months, and that time doesn't include our compensation claim:- we didn't even file our complaint until *after* we'd moved house, because we wanted to get the move done as quickly as possible.

Moral of this story, don't trust anyone, including the solicitors, because as far as I can tell, none of them can spell properly either.

[Anonymous Coward]

Limits of digital identity

I like doing stuff online, but who actually needs this?

[Steve K]

Re: Limits of digital identity

Spot on....

The rest of the mortgage process takes an age, especially if you are contending with the lender's "preferred" conveyancers who - when I have dealt with them - actually needed me to do much of their job for them and send copies of the SAME documents 3 times to them.

I'm not sure therefore which part of the process this will speed up - unless you are fortunate enough to be paying cash....

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Limits of digital identity

"send copies of the SAME documents 3 times to them."

I submitted a planning application to my local council several years back and 3 complete copies of the plans had to be submitted, even though I was applying online .....

They contacted me a few days later saying the plans weren't acceptable as I should have outlined the addition in red on the site plan. Odd I said as I had done exactly that. It transpired that they had printed the PDF's I had uploaded on their black and white printer instead of their colour one.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Limits of digital identity

Similarly, when I applied for a mortgage and had to provide 3 months of bank statements (hardcopies): A week or so later the building soc complained that there were lots of gaps in the statements. It transpired that internally they'd scanned only one side of my two-sided statements. Fail!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Limits of digital identity

My building soc / mortgage provider readily acknowledged that I'd get the mortgage/purchase quicker if I used my own conveyancer (a local, who is well regarded, and they knew) rather than their bundled conveyancing service.

[silverfern]

Re: Limits of digital identity

They seem to like it in Estonia.

[JimmyPage]

Re: They seem to like it in Estonia.

My recollection is the Estonian Prime Minsters grasp of the subject was pretty impressive, and he was completely aware of what digital ID was - and was not. (I'm sure peeps can find the El Reg article themselves).

We really have to find a way to lose this ludicrous arrogance that because we are "British" we are somehow naturally good at shit. Because generally, I'd say we were naturally shit at being good.

[Glad Im Done with IT]

Fundementaly Flawed

What HMG have failed to realise is that to trust in Verify you first have to trust the companies who are supposed to be the 'guardians' of your online identity. I for one would not trust a single one of the shysters who are signed up for this!