Moving house when work is "reorganising"

[mouldier]

Our house has been on the market for several months, and after a sluggish pre-Christmas market, things are starting to pick up - we're starting to get offers, and they're edging closer to the asking price. Out of the blue DH has come home today with the news that his department is being reorganised at work, and there will be some redundancies. There's no particular reason to think he will be one of them, and in the worst case scenario, he's confident of getting a good pay-out, getting plenty of notice, and finding another job relatively quickly, so he's not at all worried. However he won't know for sure what's happening until at least April, and the re-org is scheduled for July. He thinks we should just carry on with the idea of moving, but I'm worried that the bank might not approve the mortgage. Obviously if it gets to the point where he's been given notice, they wouldn't approve it, but what about if you know there is an impending risk of redundancy - do you have to tell them?

Whilst it might sound like it’s a “material change to financial circumstances”, it’s not, because nothings happened yet and it may not happen

He is still employed in the same role and is no clearer on the future than anyone else.

Go for it and then wait and see what happens, if the worst case scenario happens, do you work and if so are you able to pay the mortgage on your wage? If you think he’ll get a job quickly or that you’d still find a way to pay it then I wouldn’t say anything. Lenders can’t get info from HR departments about current status of employment other than say they’re “employed”, which would still be what they’d say even if you were working a redundancy period. They would usually do this before an offer is given but only if they had cause for concern about the employment info you’ve given them

If he does get made redundant can you afford to move where you are heading......

Well we can afford it if he gets another equivalent job, which we're reasonably confident won't be a problem (we're in London, so plenty of jobs around, he's got marketable skills, a good cv and excellent references, so no reason to doubt it). I currently work 0.5FTE, so there is also scope to for me to increase my hours if necessary (don't want to, but could be a temporary contingency plan).

We're generally very risk averse and have been planning an easily affordable trade-up. We've almost paid off the mortgage on our current home, but our DCs are now 13 and 11 and it's feeling way too small. We ruminated over moving for a long time, and given their ages it's now or never - our eldest could well be off to uni in 5 years. But having made the decision to move a year ago, just as the market slowed right down, the offers have only just started to come in.

So, I think, provided there are no technical issues mortgage wise, we will plough on regardless. But I need to know what information we're obliged to give the mortgage provider. So thanks @CheeseFiend36, your post was helpful. And if anyone knows more I'd be keen to hear it.

No you don’t have to tell them. Essentially nothing has changed and companies go through reorganisations all the time. In fact DH (who works for a bank!) goes through a reorganisation with risk of redundancy at least once a year!

Hi OP we bought our first house last year when our company were doing reviewd, we knew our dept was due butnot when. We didn't have to declare it and got the mortgage fine.... first time buyers as well. As it was there was no impact although we are under more scrutiny come June. DH and i work for the same company/dept