Renegotiating house price after mortgage offer

[Miniforce]

We had an offer accepted on a house in July but for various reasons didn't get the survey done till September, by which time our mortgage offer had come through. Survey shows that the house needs a bit of work so we'd like to ask for some money off. Does anyone know if banks usually honour existing mortgage offers if the sale price changes? We'd be looking to borrow the same amount but with a lower deposit; current LTV is exactly 70% so I doubt the change would push us into an new bracket.

Given everything that's happened in the last couple of months, we can't afford to start the mortgage application process again. Of course we could try asking the vendors to do the work before we move but I doubt they'd be keen (I wouldn't be!) and we'd rather choose our own tradespeople. Mortgage broker is on holiday till Monday so I'm hoping Mumsnet can help in the meantime!

Ours wouldn’t sorry, they made us start the whole process again.

We were borrowing 200k on a £400k house and we wanted to then borrow 230k on a £370k house after shitshow of a survey. And do the work with the 30k. That was with Nationwide in Feb this year. The £230k was still within our affordability criteria but we had do get a new deal on a new (higher) rate.

Your vendors may well think that the stamp duty cut is likely to save you money there so be inclined to stick with the price. They'll know that you won't be able to get a better mortgage - equally they'll know that they won't be likely to get as good a price if they go back on the market as any new buyers may struggle

Thanks for the quick responses!

@Captinplanit do you remember if that was because you went into a new LTV bracket or were they just being mean?! Hope everything worked out ok in the end.

@escapingthecity yes exactly, if we had to apply for a new mortgage now it would probably end up costing us more than just doing the work!

@Miniforce yes, it would have pushed us from 50% to the next bracket. You might have a better chance if not.

In the end we pulled out because the vendors wanted to put it back on the market while we reapplied for a mortgage and we didn’t want to apply and then have it sold to someone else! Your vendors may be more sympathetic.

They didn’t resell, we then lost our buyer, we resold for more money and brought a different house after reflecting on the idea of having to do loads of work as soon as we moved in for 6 weeks!

So it all worked out for us in the end. I hope it does for you 🤞. Good luck. It’s so stressful.

@Captinplanit thanks. That does sound stressful! Glad it all worked out in the end 😊 Ours has been pretty smooth so far and everyone in the chain seems quite reasonable, but of course there's always something...