to want to pull out of buying this house?

[AKMD]

Background: we are expecting our first DC very shortly. I will be taking maternity leave for 9 months and then going back to work full-time. DH earns significantly less than I do (about 6k less at the moment) and we definitely can't afford to pay essentials bills without my income. We are financing my maternity leave with savings (we hope).

We are about 3 weeks away from completing on a house that I don't particularly like for various reasons, but have allowed myself to be talked into accepting. We spent ages viewing other houses and didn't see anything else we both liked, and we wanted to buy before stamp duty comes back in in January. I'm having some serious misgivings about the whole situation though and really don't want to buy the house at all, not only because I don't like it much, but also because I don't think we can really afford it. DH is hopeless with money, we don't have a joint account and I am continually having to bail him out because he has overstretched his finances. He ignores budgets, constantly buys things he doesn't need, signs up to services we don't need and I don't want (e.g. Sky TV, yuck), lends money to his parents without asking me and is generally a liability where money is concerned. The only way we have a deposit for this house is through my savings; he has none. I just don't see how we are going to be able to stay above water when my income is seriously reduced, especially with the expense of a new baby. I have raised these concerns over and over again with DH but he is very good at talking me into things so this has led nowhere. I am now panicking a bit because once we exchange contracts, there is no going back and I think we might seriously regret this.

Do I have legitimate concerns or am I just getting cold feet at the thought of having so much of a financial responsibility? WWYD?

How much rent/mortgage do you pay now and much would it go up to?

perhaps you would be better off with a joint account where you can control/monitor it better

We're renting at £600 and mortgage repayments + insurance work out at £1000.

any increase in water rates & council tax??

That does sound like a big jump and of course would be bigger if the interest rates go up?

I think it's whether you think your dh will be the cause of their being financial problems in the future or not.

Can you get him to transfer x amount to a household account each month so he has less money to waste/loan out etc would he agree to it?

YANBU.

Why buy if you don't love the house and can't wait to be in it?

I agree if you really don't like the house I wouldn't go through with it.

I didn't like our house, it was the best of what we could afford and it is good location wise for practical reasons so it has lots going for it IYSWIM.

Plus it was cheaper to buy than rent!

yanbu

I would not want to be on the mortgage of buying a house where I did not have some control over the money coming in and going out.

I would only do it if there was a joint bank account (separate to individual accounts if neither are comfortable with it), with no overdraft facility on it, where the mortgage and essential house bills were paid from.

And I would only agree to that if it was discussed and decided that any direct debits that were to come out of that account were actually agreed (ie.no Sky sign-ups without agreement).

Then at least he can piss his own money away on lending to his parents without you bailing him out all the time.

And I would want control of savings if it was funding my maternity leave.

I can't see any other way to make you feel comfortable with your purchase.

I wouldn't buy it probably.

Thanks everyone. I would love to have a joint account for bills etc. but the banks we tried won't give us one as our credit score is terrible atm (not from bad debts, just because it kept getting checked while we were applying for a mortgage). TBH the only reason I'm not insisting that we don't buy the house is because it would be so embarrassing. Really pathetic reason, I know.

With a child on the way, you don't need the aggro of a move, not to mention the financial problems which you seem to believe (you wouldn't have aired your fears if you didn't have got them) will loom while you are maternity leave.

Plenty of people pull out of sales (both buyers and sellers) at the last moment - they even try to change the terms (price, date, etc.) at the last moment - because nothing is final until it is final.

Do give yourself a break and pull out. Hopefully, your DH will be relieved (and not pissed off that he can't "prove himself" - is he pressuring you? He'll have enough chances to prove himself when he becomes a father!).

Have you already exchanged or not?

Pull Out, listen to your gut, don't worry about the embarrassment, this is not the right house for you.

please don't borrow thousands of pounds because you are too embarrased not to.
In your shoes, right now, I would walk away from this house.
I think you have too much on your plate right now without stresses over money.

My advice to you is to stay in rented until you are back to work from maternity at least.

Work on your improving your credit rating during this time. Pay any debts you have off - use the £400 saving you would have spent on the monthly mortgage to do this, this will get you use to paying £1k a month too.

I am guessing you are paying a fairly high interest rate if your credit rating is bad so hopefully in a year or two, with an improved credit rating you will be able to get a more competitive dedal.
Can I ask what interest deal you have been offered?

I can see the stamp duty is a big pull factor but even the grand or two you might be saving on that is not worth the potential mistake of buying a house that you really cannot afford.

Also, the general consensus atm is for house prices to fall next year. Some commentators are saying 10%. I have no idea if they will or not (although I do suspect they will) but what if they do and you end up in negative equity. That would be pretty disastrous.

Please rethink it all with your dh and please don't be afraid to pull out.

So what if the estate agents and vendors are pissed off. They won't be there to help if you do get into financial trouble.

Look again at buying in a year or two and until then enjoy your new baby!

Oh God, YANBU at ALL. You aren't just talking mortgage when you own - if the boiler goes, the roof leaks, anything, YOU have to fix it at vast expense, and I have never yet heard of a house that didn't have things wrong that became apparent only after purchase. Add to that the fact that nobody knows which way prices are heading (probably either holding or falling given economic circumstances though it's anyone's guess which), or interest rates (other than up, because they're unsustainably low atm), and you could end up having a mortgage you can't pay on a house you don't like that's worth less than you paid for it. While paying double what you would for a rented place where the roof was someone else's problem. If you adore a house, and can afford it even with substantially higher interest rates, then the stability and investment long term is always great. But are either of those true for you?

Home ownership is fantastic in many ways, but not unless you can reasonably afford it. If it's embarrassing to pull out of a house buy this early on (not sure it is, tbh, it's a business transaction, not a wedding) then I'm afraid I think that might be a price worth paying. If the worst came to the worst - and you don't even need to be bad with money, if the margins are very tight - you could end up with a far more embarrassing situation. And buying a house you don't like doesn't sound to me like a good idea under any circumstances. If it isn't going to feel like a home, why do it?

YANBU

Pull out.

If you buy this house you will resent it.

tell your dh to pull his finger out wrt money and ring the ea tmw and say you are pulling out. you don't need to tell them why.

I would always say that you need to spend a year saving that £400 per month extra you need to find to afford a £1k monthly mortgage, that's nearly an extra £5k toward to the deposit. Plus who knows they may extend the stamp duty thing anyway.

YANBU. Ring the estate agents tomorrow and let them know that you will not be buying.

Wait at least until you are back at work after mat. leave until you think about moving again.

YANBU - it would be absolute madness to continue with this.

YANBU. Rent and be happy, and wait for something else to come along. you're going to pay 40% more to buy - now that is unreasonable.

Your reason for pulling out is that your financial circumstances have changed - happens all the time in this economic climate.

If you are the major financial contributor to the household income, it goes without saying that you have an equal say in buying the house, probably more so.

Ask dh who really is the financial brains in this house? Who is the person who's been saving for the deposit and doesn't give away their money to family? Then explain you have worked out you CAN'T AFFORD TO BUY until you are back at work. And when you do buy it's got to be a house you love. He can also put his wage into a joint account - and then agree a sum left over that he can do what he wants with: like buy the new baby presents.

It makes little sense to over-extend yourself on a house you DO love; it is the way to madness to overextend yourself on a house you DON'T!

Get your dh on here, I'll tell him.

Thanks everyone, I have been laughing quietly to myself at some of your responses. For now, we are in a pretty good financial situation. We have no debts, nothing bought on credit, lots of savings in the bank... but this will change overnight if we go through with this house. Our credit score wasn't bad before we were offered a mortgage, it's bad because when the mortgage broker applied for a mortgage in principle for us, it apparently lowered our score. Our bank won't even give us a joint account with a debit card (no matter that we've had accounts with them since we were born...). The interest rate on the mortgage is 6.49% so not brilliant and it's fixed for 2 years. And no, we haven't exchanged yet.

I see a long and painful conversation with DH this evening Thanks for making me feel better about it though!

Hang on. IF you have contracted you have to go through with completion or face loss of deposit, legal bills and being sued for potential further damages.

Have you thought about getting copies of your own and your DH's credit ratings from the agencies?

I only say this as it really shouldn't have taken just one mortgage application to lower your joint credit score to the point where you aren't even given a joint account with a bank you currently have a longstanding relationship with.

I know things have changed a lot in the last 12 months, and maybe someone else can shed some light on this, but it does seem odd to me that your joint rating is so low. Would be interesting to see what your DH's file says.

I agree with everyone who says pull out.

1. you don't love the house - that's a huge reason not to buy a house

1. you're using your savings to fund the deposit AND living off them during maternity - don't try and overstretch your savings

1. if you wait until you're back at work you'll be much more financially secure

1. if you buy the house and your finances go horribly wrong during the months you're off (because you have no income) then you'll lose the house anyway

1. Always listen to your instinct - its usually right

AKMD - Late to the thread, but even after you have discussed pu;;ing out of this house with your DH, there is still the financial future with him to consider!

For what it's worth, I wouldn't buy a house I didn't like - you do need to be really looking foard to moving in, if you're putting your savings into it.

Have you factored in realistic childcare costs into your post-baby living-with-a mortgage budget? And, you know, everything might change. You wouldn't be the first woman to decide you don't want to go back to work - and the need to pay a mortgage on a house you don't like shouldn't keep you from staying at home with your child if that's how you feel. That would be very iserable indeed.

About how you deal with money.
We have separate accounts, but we also have a joint 'house' account. We each have a standing order which pays an agreed amount from each of us into the joint account the day after our salaries go in. All the direct debits for the bills - council tax, insurance, mortgage, childcare, gas, elec, go out of that account.

I'm not sure why your credit should be so bad, but if you usd a house account like that you wouldn't need a debit card on it anyway. Though we buy food and DS's clothes and presnts fom that account too. I think you should do whatever you can to get your DH to put sufficient money intoa house account before he has had chance to spend it each month, whether you buy this house, another house, or no house!

Sorry to be a cynic, but there is no way that one credit score for the purposes of a mortgage in principle would lower your credit rating to mean that you couldn't get a joint account with a debit card.

Something has gone wrong somewhere, as otherwise noone with a mortgage could ever have a joint account.

Someone isn't telling you the full truth here.

Plus, sorry but that mortgage rate is terrible. i thought interest rates were at historic lows in the UK? Again, if you have no debt and good savings/deposit, you should be getting a lower rate than that.

I think your mortgage broker needs to answer some tough questions.