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Suffolk Building Society, formerly Ipswich Building Society: Mortgages reviews

Name: Mortgages
Rating: 4.64 (98 reviews)

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4.64

Based on 98 reviews, last reviewed 13th Mar 2025

No new 5 star reviews

in the past 90 days

100% increase in 1 star reviews

in the past 90 days

87%

Latest highest rating:

5

Lynmede Mortgage - Stephen Lye From a personal customer service perspective Suffolk Building Society are excellent. I would like to personally thank Stephen Lye for his excellent cu... Read more Reviewed on: 24th February 2025

Latest lowest rating:

1

Incompetent, frustrating and time-wasters Utterly incompetent. Took 2 months to event get our re-mortgage application processed (costing time, and money) and then every single thing we put was... Read more Reviewed on: 13th March 2025

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About this product

Buying a home is an exciting time in anyone’s life, but finding the right mortgage product can be daunting. We collect Suffolk Building Society mortgage reviews to help you make an informed decision when choosing a mortgage lender.

Suffolk Building Society is an independent mutual building society, offering a range of mortgage products. Always be confident with the terms, conditions and interest rates of a product. Consult the lender or an independent advisor if you need help understanding your options.

If you’re considering a mortgage with Suffolk Building Society, check out the reviews on Smart Money People. Read genuine experiences to gain valuable insight into the lender. Find out which mortgage products customers have taken out and how satisfied they have been throughout the term. Learn more about Suffolk Building Society’s customer service and the benefits you can receive as a member. All of this and more can be found in our Suffolk Building Society mortgage reviews.

Did Suffolk Building Society help you purchase your dream home? Share your experience with others by writing an honest Suffolk Building Society mortgage review. Tell us about the application process: did the Society support you throughout it? Did you find the application easy to understand? Has the Society kept you up to date with any important mortgage news or changes? Would you recommend Suffolk Building Society to family and friends? Write a review today. Together, we can help people like you make better financial decisions.

Suffolk Building Society, formerly Ipswich Building Society Mortgages reviews (98)

Review of the Suffolk Building Society, formerly Ipswich Building Society, Mortgages:

Excellent Support and Customer Care Staff

We have had a mortgage with Suffolk (formerly Ipswich) for almost 2 years, and not really needed to contact them, but as the 2 year period was coming to an end our contact suddenly ramped up towards the product switch possibility. I can not stress enough how supportive, friendly, personable, and seemingly caring each individual we spoke to was towards us within the process. Excellent isn’t actually enough - to name a couple of staff, Joe called us to check on our selection of mortgage as he noticed we might have made a mistake, so talked me through where we had gone wrong… he also drew my attention to the fact that I could benefit from a month extra at a slightly lower interest rate if we make the switch immediate rather than at the end of the terms (something I wasnt aware we were allowed to do… a small saving, but still a saving). This then drove a closer deadline for our actions, which meant more calls from us to suffolk for questions. We never once felt that our questions were taken lightly, nor felt stupid in asking what we thought might be stupid questions. Joe, Maria and a couple of other staff whom I cant recall the names of sadly, all were incredibly helpful. From all our experiences so far, we strongly recommend Suffolk for ExPat mortgages. I feel like they are also good value for money, as alternative offers for this switch period were coming up with higher sign up fees etc… but our main review is their support. Thanks for being so supportive. Reviewed on: 15th May 2024

Avoid at all costs!!

reviews IBS As it says on the title, avoid IBS! Having had a mortgage with the society for close to 5 years, they have outrageously high early repayment charges( much higher than any other lender). Poor customer service, no customer loyalty. Archaic in lending- no opportunity to speak with someone at any senior level, if you request a call back with senior management they will forward messages on. Highly judgemental organisation that needs to move to the 21st century. So pleased to have left them and have always advised family and friends to AVOID! Reviewed on: 16th August 2021

Reply from Suffolk Building Society, formerly Ipswich Building Society Thank you for your review of our mortgages. We are sorry to read you have been unhappy with our service and in particular our Early Repayment Charge. All of the fees and charges relating to our mortgages are displayed upfront and listed in the individual ESIS document, so we are sorry that you feel unhappy with those charged on redemption of your mortgage. In relation to your comment about being unable to speak with a member of our senior management team we apologise for not being able to meet this request – we will take this feedback on board and are committed to improving service standards for our members. Once again thank you for your feedback and we apologise we did not meet your expectations. Response date: 24th August 2021

Helpful, professional and a good mortgage deal

It is very easy to contact Ipswich Building society and to speak to an advisor. I received good advice and I am very happy with my mortgage. Everything was set up with the minimum of fuss. Reviewed on: 15th July 2021

Got there in the end

Overall our experience wasn't a possitive one. From a Feb 2021 engagement we ended up with a July 2021 completion. Whilst I was always able to contact the IBS team, I had to work hard to chase these communications/milestones and never felt an urgency to IBS driving these outcomes. Every time a response was made to IBS, it was subjected to a 10 working day turnaround time; this increased to 12 days towards the end of our processing. This heavily impacted the overall timetable significantly. As a self build mortgage, our engagement continues. We will draw down funds against our build milestones so this has to be an effective and timely process. Thus far, it hasn't. I find myself having to think 6 weeks ahead from the imperative date of stage funds reciept to work back factoring in IBS lead times and any additional lead time associated to instructing a revaluation of the property. This shouldn't be the norm; I've created a workaround. I understand very well the impact of remote working over the past 16 months. I understand how this can impact on day to day processes but I could not tell my Customers that their requests are sublect to a 2+ week delay. Are further resource is needed to meet your demand?. It cannot be purely attributed to the pandemic therefore perhaps internal procedures or a triage function is required to route work to the right teams at the right time. Reviewed on: 14th July 2021

Reply from Suffolk Building Society, formerly Ipswich Building Society Thank you for providing your feedback which is greatly appreciated and has been passed on to the relevant departments at the Society. I’m sorry that your application wasn’t processed efficiently and for the amount of time it has taken to get through to completion. We have recently received unprecedented application volumes due partly to the stamp duty deadline and unfortunately as a result, our usual service standards slipped below the level we aim to provide our customers with. The Society are committed to making improvements to ensure that this doesn’t happen again, as a result we have made investment within our underwriting department with further staff resource now in place and a significant IT system upgrade in the works. Thank you once again for your feedback and I wish you well with your self build project. Response date: 26th July 2021

Mortgage

You had to find a lot of paperwork, funny how we passed the credit check, but failed the ID check as we didn't have enough check points, like loans, debts, credit cards, HP's. And the time limit on the Mortgage was very tight to the move date, which was brought forward to accommodate the application expiry date. (Maybe we applied too early, but it was after we sold and the chain was complete). Reviewed on: 14th July 2021

Oldies can get mortgages

Needed a few more pennies and so who else but Ipswich Building Society. Reviewed on: 20th April 2021

Helpful and efficient

Ipswich Building Society explained the process very clearly at each stage. My mortgage consultant was extremely helpful and efficient, she responded to my questions and queries very promptly and in general the process went very smoothly. Reviewed on: 20th April 2021

My requirement fully met and staff knowledgeable

We got there in the end but some delays due to Covid and valuation delays Reviewed on: 31st March 2021

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