I feel a bit like my wits end today. Last October we decided to remortgage our help to buy house as the term was ending in January. Due to the rates being all over the place, it worked out best to buy out the extra 20% of the house while they were so low. I thought it would be pretty straightforward, but it's been more stressful than buying our house in the first place - it's still not gone through and the associated costs keep escalating!
There was so much more to the process than we even realised - paying for a RICS surveyor to come out, transferring £200 to the Target's bank account for admin costs, printing and signing no end of documents, there were so many moving parts and we sat on NOTHING!
Despite our current mortgage estimating our house value at £515k, the new mortgage did their own valuation and took £100k off that which meant we needed to pay a couple of thousand off the equity to keep the rate we were offered, this was frustrating but we thought - it's just some money thats not being mortgaged so we proceeded.
Then there came an issue with the management company that look after the estate (we are not leasehold, this is a company that look after the greenspace for a cost of around £170 a year). Apparently they have a claim on our mortgage so we had to instruct some new solicitors and start the process again as we needed a Deed of Variation, and our instructed firm didn't do this sort of work.
Suddenly I am paying out £800 to instruct new solicitors to get involved in this, while it was a lot more than expected they have been really on the ball, updates two or three times a week, constant chasing.
The part where it's all got stuck is with the original builders solicitors. They gave us a quote of £900 to draw up this Deed of Variation document (which I am assured is just a template that they update the address I'm for all the builders properties), they then charged us £190 extra for reading and signing the document, and another £190 from the original builder to do the same. As the BoE Base rates have gone up, we couldn't really back down now as the rate we got is so low it's not longer possible to afford another alternative.
The builders solicitors have just sat on the document for weeks now, despite constant chasers. It's got to the point that my original valuation for the help to buy expires this Thursday, and it's all going to fall apart unless I pay for another valuation - which if it's higher than it was in December will mean even more costs! I'm so angry, it feels like they have treated us with disdain and are at the bottom of the pile - and as they are not our solicitors we have no right to contact them or even complain to anyone about this. I feel like they are absuing the system and it feels like they have a licence to print money.
Throughout this period, we have suffered bereavement and it's been so hard coping with this additional stress. I'm on maternity leave so the extra money was all of the money I saved for maternity. If costs carry on increasing like I'm going to have to return to work earlier than planned as I've already used up 80% of the money I saved for my leave on these extra costs. I feel sick just thinking about how much this has affected my life and I just want it to be over.
Sorry, that was so long and probably missed some key details, but I just wanted either a hand hold and reassurance from anyone who has been through the same, or to warn anyone thinking of going through this to make sure you've done your research as there is potential it could cause you a lot of stress when you have to remortgage a new build property. How this is allowed to happen with the scheme I don't know. It's got the potential to create mortgage prisoners.