Mortgage offer - we're being lied to, right?

[moomoose]

We did have a chain, but it went a bit wonky when it surfaced that our buyer wants to change from a tracker mortgage to a fixed rate mortgage, and is waiting for this to be approved.

That sounds reasonable enough, but SURELY it can't take 5 weeks to do something that simple. Which is how long it's taken, so far.

The house we're hoping to buy has now been put back on the market so we're in real danger of losing it. The place we're selling is now back on the market too after we decided someone is either so incompetent as to have no idea what's really going on, or is lying to us.

Has anyone made that sort of tweak to a mortgage offer before, and how long has it taken?

Not done this myself however we’re removing equity from our current house to put as a deposit on our new one and have been quoted 4-6 weeks for funds to be released.

It is possible that the banks are being that slow at the moment. (We did get our mortgage application approved in less than an hour though so they might be waiting for some documentation to be sent to the bank?)

sorry they are being so awful OP, it’s rather stressful for you!

I've worked in mortgages and i'd expect it to take no more than a couple of weeks tops.

I don't understand why the house you are buying has been out back on the market? Surely they have accepted your offer and surveys have been done? House buying and selling can take a long time especially if the chain breaks,

Are you sure they haven't put it back on at a higher price?

It may be that they are struggling to afford the additonal repayments given higher interest rates, and are trying to buy time to borrow from f&F?

When we purchased our current place we had a nightmare with a high street lender. Our advisor only worked part-time and seemed to be off often, which meant messages weren’t passed on. After a few months we gave up and went with a broker who sorted it out in a few days and then we exchanged and moved within a matter of weeks. It was incredibly stressful for us as we were renting and about to become homeless when I was pregnant.

It's definitely gone back on at the same price. It seems a bit complicated - the estate agents say the vendors are worried they'll lose their onward purchase and the estate agents say the vendors want it back on the market. I don't trust any of them!

We’ve changed our mortgage to a smaller amount after a negotiation with the vendor and are still waiting two weeks later for it to go through underwriting and it should be so simple and straightforward. It’s less money than they approved before, bonkers. I think the external environment is maybe putting in extra checks etc, especially as in our case it’s been five months since original mortgage.

@moomoose unless they are going to a different lender it shouldn’t be a big deal to switch products? The approval is about whether you can pay. Same lender will use same valuation etc. Different will re do all of the checks of affordability and payments. However, when we applied for ours, it was just a few days in total and then waiting on the valuation survey to be done.

OP - The people you're buying from could still end up in a chain if they accept an offer from someone else and that chain could go wrong so I don't really understand their logic

Processing times at lenders at the moment are ridiculous, especially high street lenders. So I wouldn't actually be surprised...

We had to reduce our mortgage after the house price was reduced, and it took longer than expected given how easy the change was. Also everyone seems to be on holiday this week! Lots of staff turnover, and vacancies too in most organisations.

5 weeks for an mortguage offer would be a long time... 5 weeks to change from one to other and possibly get the pla e revalued and possible with a different provider is not that long - Its not a "tweak" in my view.

I’d suspect their mortgage in principle has expired and they’re looking for a new one

It turns out our agent can't actually get hold of our buyer now and hasn't been able to for a week or so apparently. So I'm going to assume we've been ghosted.

Our buyer has just told our agent to stop contacting them because they're pulling out - so that's the end of that. Back to the drawing board... sigh.