Buyers offered in house 2 months ago and not put in a mortgage application...

[Dollymixtureharibo]

Just need to get this out there. AIBU to wonder why the hell our buyers have not put an application in for their mortgage....

Our buyers put an offer on our property 2 months ago almost and today my solicitor informed me that our buyers have not applied for a mortgage yet due to our move date.
We are buying a new build, we have offer in place, reserved property paid for extras and have been told ready Aug/Sept but most likely August. Husband works in construction and after viewing the house a few weeks ago he thinks it will be probably 8-12 weeks.
Now we have never committed to a date but said August.
I am now really freaking out that they have not put an application in and we could lose our dream home.
Have ranted 3 times at the estate agent to question why a buyer would do this and asked for the date of the AIP expiry date to which I was told no date.
And this is now making the gut feeling I have had about the buyers make me want to just put the house back on the market as just feel this is only the beginning of a bad situation

I think your problem is that you're in a chain situation, which you don't want to be in. If you don't want to be in a chain then you need to sell now and rent for a few months. That's the only way to be 100% sure of everything.

I think you're just getting p'd off with your buyers because there is uncertainty, not because of anything they have done. It sounds like they are keen on a certain move date, they're the ones with the most uncertainty here.

Your buyers can pull out at any point. If you want to be 100% sure of your house purchase going through, you need to break the chain. It's an option to you, yes it has added expense but if you want guarantees it's the only way to get them.

To ensure it doesn’t expire by the time you’re ready to complete

If the AIP has expired a new one will need to be done, also the product they we’re looking at may no longer be available. Rates are starting to creep up.

The idea of having an offer valid for 6 months is that you can lock in that product, and usually be able to extend the offer (especially on a new build).

Utterly bonkers not to have put an application in.

Thank you. I appreciate that not everyone will think the same but after reading everyone’s replies I really began to doubt my thoughts.

Rental is not an option for us and just not ideal for our family.
It’s not about me wanting to be in control it’s about everyone working together on it and having realistic goals.

I don’t believe they ever had an AIP as the EA didn’t even know who the buyers financial advisor is.
The only positive is that we have found this all out now and not months down the line. So it should be managed effectively but who knows.

@Dollymixtureharibo

Thank you. I appreciate that not everyone will think the same but after reading everyone’s replies I really began to doubt my thoughts.

Rental is not an option for us and just not ideal for our family.
It’s not about me wanting to be in control it’s about everyone working together on it and having realistic goals.

I don’t believe they ever had an AIP as the EA didn’t even know who the buyers financial advisor is.
The only positive is that we have found this all out now and not months down the line. So it should be managed effectively but who knows.

An AIP doesn't require a financial advisor--it takes 5 minutes to get online and is basically worthless. I (and I think many other people) went about it by appointing a broker first thing, the broker may have told them to not bother with full process yet. Some rates have got even better in the last few weeks. The last thing they will want is multiple hard searches and fees to mortgage companies. Unless you think there's any serious chance of their mortgage getting rejected there's no issue here.

Find it strange then that every time I have seen posts on Facebook local pages and speaking to EA’s that buyers have to be in a proceedable position with AIP and sold or FTB to even look at properties due to Covid.
I obviously must have no clue what I am talking about and have been misinformed by countless people oh and my solicitor

And never knew it was that easy to get an AIP online!! Before we could even reserve our property we had to speak to their financial adviser who checked our affordability even though we had an AIP which we also had to provide.

It seems crazy that anyone can get an AIP that easy.
But hey ho how am I to know

@Dollymixtureharibo

And never knew it was that easy to get an AIP online!! Before we could even reserve our property we had to speak to their financial adviser who checked our affordability even though we had an AIP which we also had to provide.

It seems crazy that anyone can get an AIP that easy.
But hey ho how am I to know

That's basically just a scam where they try to make you go with their financial adviser as they get commission! For an AIP they don't even check that the information is accurate, I could get an AIP for Sherlock Holmes to buy a mansion if I wanted.

It does depend on the EA though--mine didn't even ask about AIP, they just knew what I earn and thought I was the kind of boring responsible person who would have it sorted.

When we just bought our house the mortgage offer was only valid for three months so if you said August/September and we'd applied in May then it might've expired by the time you're ready. I think YABU - it's pretty obvious why they haven't applied yet tbh.

Our financial advisor ran an AIP for us.
Even when we brought the house we are in now the advisor then ran an AIP and our financial situation was trickier then.
So you are saying they are all doing the wrong thing?
My issue with this is how is this fair to any seller if a buyer can walk into a property go yeah I’ll have that when their affordability has not even been checked!! How am I to know now if my buyers can afford to buy my house!! This is 2 months down the line with possibly no idea if they can afford to buy it! That’s 2 months wasted!
I get mortgage offers run out I also know that if a mortgage company are advised of what the situation is they can (don’t have to) extend. We had ours set to 6 months on the basis of the new build on a recommendation of our broker.

I am also well versed in EA’s pulling “scams” on getting people to use their brokers but my EA doesn’t even know who the broker is for our buyers.

1. Buying a house is stressful, and Buying a new build puts extra pressure in the situation.

1. Most people don't use a financial advisor to organise a mortgage or a mortgage broker, they go straight to a bank. So your buyer went to a bank and got a mortgage in principle.

1. Most mortgage offers are valid fora certain period, often three months and if the sale is not completed in three months then the mortgage is not valid.

1. Your buyer agreed to wait for your new build to be ready, August or Sept.

1. Therefore they cannot get a mortgage sorted until beginning of June, to give them three months.

1. Therefore, given your timescales, I would be expecting them to put in the mortgage paperwork now, and a survey done on your property in mid June.

Given your timescales they are acting properly.

However, anyone can legally pull out the second before exchange happens, so there is never any guarantee. That is why almost everyone buying a new build is either a cash buyer, first time buyer or moves into rented between selling and buying the new build.

@Dishwashersaurous

1. Buying a house is stressful, and Buying a new build puts extra pressure in the situation.

1. Most people don't use a financial advisor to organise a mortgage or a mortgage broker, they go straight to a bank. So your buyer went to a bank and got a mortgage in principle.

1. Most mortgage offers are valid fora certain period, often three months and if the sale is not completed in three months then the mortgage is not valid.

1. Your buyer agreed to wait for your new build to be ready, August or Sept.

1. Therefore they cannot get a mortgage sorted until beginning of June, to give them three months.

1. Therefore, given your timescales, I would be expecting them to put in the mortgage paperwork now, and a survey done on your property in mid June.

Given your timescales they are acting properly.

However, anyone can legally pull out the second before exchange happens, so there is never any guarantee. That is why almost everyone buying a new build is either a cash buyer, first time buyer or moves into rented between selling and buying the new build.

Thanks. Didn’t know any of this!

Sounds like your solicitor is not doing a very good job of keeping you informed. You should ask them for breakdown of the the next steps and when they need to happen in order to meet your deadline. Including what your buyers need to do

If you want absolute certainty, the only way to get it is to break the chain. Nobody WANTS to do rented but if you can’t bear any insecurity about securing the house I would do that.

Even if the buyers had everything sorted a year in advance, they could lose their job or find somewhere they prefer a week before.

And I wouldn’t pay a solicitor to get an AIP, they literally just went on the Barclays website and put in a few numbers

*financial advisor

@Dishwashersaurous

1. Buying a house is stressful, and Buying a new build puts extra pressure in the situation.

1. Most people don't use a financial advisor to organise a mortgage or a mortgage broker, they go straight to a bank. So your buyer went to a bank and got a mortgage in principle.

1. Most mortgage offers are valid fora certain period, often three months and if the sale is not completed in three months then the mortgage is not valid.

1. Your buyer agreed to wait for your new build to be ready, August or Sept.

1. Therefore they cannot get a mortgage sorted until beginning of June, to give them three months.

1. Therefore, given your timescales, I would be expecting them to put in the mortgage paperwork now, and a survey done on your property in mid June.

Given your timescales they are acting properly.

However, anyone can legally pull out the second before exchange happens, so there is never any guarantee. That is why almost everyone buying a new build is either a cash buyer, first time buyer or moves into rented between selling and buying the new build.

All of this. You need to calm down a bit OP - the buyers are working to your timescale.

If you absolutely can't rent while waiting for new build to finish it may be hard to find another buyer willing to accept that level of uncertainty. I know I would have passed on any house that had a more than 6 weeks wait to complete.

We went into rented for one month to keep our buyer and new build 🙈 definitely be very patient with a buyer willing to wait (and a builder who isn't pressuring you to exchange either) you're in a very fortunate position compared to most buying a new build in a chain.

An AIP lasts 6 months, I can't remember how long the mortgage offer lasts but I didn't have mine finally agreed in one purchase until the day that we exchanged and completed on the same day as the mortgage company kept finding issues and then took 48 hours to acknowledge any answer then took 2-3 days to reply, normally with another bloody question.

For my remortgage I applied for my remortgage in principle in June last year and it was agreed within 3 weeks but I had to wait until 1st Oct to complete it. So they still have time as long as there aren't lots of questions. I'd be suspicious though that their income has changed and they are now hanging it out so that they have 3 months of salary confirmations at a new level etc.

@person6743 new build developers can be flexible depending on the development, plot and build stage. We're in the process of buying a new build but as we're selling our own home there's no way we could meet the 28 day exchange deadline. They said they could be flexible so long as they could see things were moving behind the scenes. Frustratingly our buyer pulled out at the last minute last week. We thought we were going to lose our new build as we no longer had a buyer and our reservation had expired. But as it's due for completion in 3 weeks, you can't buy it through help to buy, it's the last plot of its type on a development they are due to complete on this winter, rather remarket it and end up with someone buying and potentially ending up in the same position as we're in they've let us keep our reservation.

@thismeansnothing I think it depends on the developer, our house wasn't ready for another 6 months when we reserved, they were adamant we needed to exchange ASAP (we didn't do it within the 4 weeks, they allowed "progress" but it was very fraught at the end). They wanted the legal commitment ASAP, they didn't want the house to fall through and not have someone in when the house was ready. We've been through this process 3 times now, was the same each time. National builders if that makes a difference.

Mortgage offer is only valid for 3 months so if they had ploughed ahead early April when offer accepted it would have expired July and they would have had to reapply?

Did you specifically ask the EA the reason for he delay?

Not all mortgage offers last only 3 months, mine have always been 6 months. Halifax even used to do one for 9 months not that long ago, not sure if that's still the case, it was in about 2018.