Property Secrets member Neil H started a running post on our forums late last year on his experience of applying for a mortgage in Poland.

This was to fund his investment in the Piastow development in Katowice, Poland.

His series of posts turned into an excellent resource for others investing in Poland and applying for a mortgage.

The development ran over by a month, much to Neil's joy as it gave him an extra few weeks to complete the mortgage application process.

Neil felt that allowing six months for the mortgage process was giving himself sufficient time but the reality was very different.

Here's what Neil wrote:

I started off the mortgage application in mid September when I filled in initial assessment documents and returned then to Jakub Krol at Open Finance/Noble Bank and Anna Zuber at Rednet.

On the 15th October and still in the process of filling out the application forms having queried some of the terms on the forms with Noble Bank and Rednet, I commented on the forum that I believed turnaround times were getting better now re mortgage applications. Hindsight is a great thing!

The month of November was spent collecting documents. Jakub is filling out the blanks on the application forms and Anna is doing the same - having suggested I forward a copy of the PPC (preliminary purchase contract).

I was worried about sending all the original documents away and it also prevented me from applying to another bank in the meantime. Had hoped to send these away by the end of the month but didn't end up sending them until mid December.

23rd December Jakub received my application but requested more up to date payslips and bank statements as it took me so long to gather the relevant information that the latest ones were a month or so old now.

Anna Zuber from Rednet has requested the same documents with my application but this is hard to do as they are now with Jakub and replicas are expensive to retrieve!

By January 11th, I still had not got all updated documents to Jakub, thanks to the Christmas holidays and delays in getting documents and I am not starting to worry about only having a couple more months to get this sorted. I finally get these out by the end of the month and Michal Jezewski is now dealing with my application and appears confident I can meet the beginning of March deadline for the first stage payment.

At the start of February, Michal informs me I need a Polish address and POA in place BEFORE they can make a mortgage offer to me. I wasn't aware of this detail and asked him for a recommendation for a local solicitor to provide this.

I get a positive loan decision from Noble Bank on the 19th February at 80% LTV and a rate of 6.6% dropping 1% when the property is handed over.

Getting the solicitor is a delay I could have done without.

By the end of February I've engaged a solicitor and had to go to Dublin to get the POA notarised and apostilled as my local notary advised that the UK foreign office might take 3 weeks to do the apostille. I did the lot in a couple of hours for €100euro total and posted it off.

The next hurdle was to pay the solicitor which turned into a nightmare and was down to the wire.

The Polish solicitor received payment and was in touch with Noble in time for the official transfer date although the solicitor didn't seem to think a few days here or there would be a problem.

The last step was getting an account with Noble Bank to transfer initial funds into.

The offer I received from Noble was the following:
Interest rate: 5.66 %
Interest in a bridging period: 6.66 % (before the bank's mortgage is written in a mortgage book of a property; interest rate is higher in this period due to higher interest rate)
LTV net 80 %
Currency CHF
Repayment period: 360 months

My solicitor signed the agreement on the 11th, so I was only over the deadline by 5 days.

I was pleased to have finally got to the end of the process...I have another 2 investments coming up in Bratislava and Krakow and hope these work out ok and don't take as long!

Neil shared the entire experience with us on the forums to highlight some of the things fellow investors need to look out for. He concluded with some key points:

Neil had intended to apply to 3 lenders, however he ended up applying to only one.

This was because he had to send original documents to each lender and it is costly to request certified copies.

Most of these documents are only valid for a month and by the time lenders get back to you most documents have expired and are not valid. One of the key things is to gather the documents in time.

Also, allow for the time spent posting the docs - couriers are expensive and might not be an option.

After receiving an offer from Noble Neil then had to provide them with an address and solicitor. For this he had to make a trip to Dublin to the local notary, then to the foreign office. Again, this was time-consuming and was not something he had planned for. You need to allow time to go through the process.

Neil's advice then is: Get your paperwork organised in advance, before you apply. Put everything in order - make sure NO pages are missing.

Bank statements should be for at least 3-6 months. Check with your bank as requesting certified copies of statements can cost money.

Know exactly what documents are required and if there is an expiry time on documents, for example, does a statement of net worth need to be valid within the last 3 months.

If certain documents expire within a month - then plan ahead and make sure this is the last document you arrange. This might sound obvious but it is very easy to get caught out.

When dealing with the mortgage broker, or going directly to the bank, make sure you are the one calling them. You need to be foremost in their minds - although Noble Bank were very good and he has no criticisms of them, you need to call them and don't wait for them to call you.

Try and do as much as you can while waiting for the offer so you can move straight away when you receive the offer.

Things you can do include finding a solicitor, for instance. This is to provide you with an address when accepting the mortgage. You need time to shop around and get a good solicitor - Neil only left himself a week to find one, give power of attorney and transfer a euro fee!

Be aware of POA's and apostils - these cost money and you need to budget for these.

When you receive a mortgage offer you will need a bank account already set up and money in the account. Noble Bank did this for Neil, but he advises otheres to check in advance.