Mortgage offer withdrawn after exchange, can I still complete next week?

[Miffed1233]

Exchanged contracts Thursday for completion next Friday. Buyer below me and I’m buying ex rental which is at top of chain

randomly bank withdraw offer Friday afternoon, 24 hrs after exchanging)saying credit rating changed therefore affordability impacted. Have a call at 9am Saturday. Wtf absolutely nothing I can think of that would have changed and my Experian score is very strong still. Any advice - is there any way I can still complete in 6 days?!

any solicitors or bankers on here?

Yes they can. They reserve the right to re-credit score etc and can change offer.
first thing I would be doing is checking your credit file, and with anyone associated with you (partner) have they applied or looked for finance for new car, sofa, anything like that could have lowered your score. Or fraud.
next thing is to speak to mortgage broker, I suspect this is a new build? Your broker is probably available this weekend, they will help you pull out the stops to see what has happened and what can be done. How old is your mortgage offer
evetytbkng crossed for you OP that this is a simple mistake and easily rectified.

With myself and my brother we both had sales fall through right before completion. In my brothers case the house he was buying his vendors pulled out and he and his young family were effectively left homeless as they had to move for work and they still wanted to proceed with the sale of the house they were in. In my case person buying asked for 100k off the week of exchange ... so i pulled out and was back to square one.
both egs really annoying and i just feel the security of an exchange helps both parties know it's really happening and less worry about spending on the move.

I had never heard of mortgage falling through after exchange tho. Hope @Miffed1233 gets good advice on here and it's resolved quickly.

I know! Was responding to posters advocating for same-day exchange and completion, which is lunacy.

How was the 9am call?

Wonder if by increasing you cc limit it had an effect on your mortgage lending ability as banks go by your line of credit and your's got increased. Strange that it is the same bank offering it though but it's all just number crunching in the end.

If you have 10K limit on a CC the banks will consider that you potentially will get yourself into 10K debt and they can use that for your affordability. If you don’t use a credit card then close it down before applying for a mortgage or reduce the limit because it can go against you.

Also I am pretty certain the bank ran a credit check before completion so we were super super careful to not do anything before that date. Exchange means nothing, they can pull the mortgage at any time before they release the funds

This might make a difference if you have poor credit score but to your average person it really shouldn’t. If you qualify comfortably for a mortgage they really shouldn’t care if you can get yourself in £10k debt, unless you’re a low earner or have other factors that make you borderline.

also really wanting to know what happened at 9am!

Call was ok thx - Whilst the banks mortgage advisor couldn't help us, we have another call scheduled later today and in the meantime they are going to refer back to the underwriter. They can't be 100% certain it will be reissued but are confident it should be. The circumstances required to withdraw the offer would have to be "substantial" such as becoming unemployed. Probably won't be certain until Monday, but they did say they can release funds as soon as the solicitor requests them so it doesn't sound like we are in complete jeopardy for next Friday yet. Fingers crossed. TBH the mortgage advisor was as perplexed as we were and didn't think the raising of the CC limit they did would have affected anything

Very stressful, but the advisor is correct. It needs to be substantial like a loan taken out, loss of job etc.

Hope you get it sorted soon.

because you must be very stressed.

Mortgage Adviser here. Terrible timing for you, but no you cannot complete without the offer intact.

Ultimately you don’t have the funds to buy, so your options will be to proceed (assuming you have the funds to bridge the difference) with the reduced amount, or pull out of the purchase.

Hope you manage to salvage it x

After exchange, and before the bank releases mortgage funds they do a final check to ensure nothing has changed, e.g any new credit agreements, debt, job change, credit score, affordability if outgoings have changed.
So something must have changed since the mortgage offer.
Hubby works in mortgage industry and we have just remortgaged so he was telling me about this recently.

I hope you get it sorted OP, it sounds like it's definitely additional borrowing of some variety that has tipped the bank/lender into thinking the level of mortgage/payments is now unaffordable. Perhaps the changes in phone and insurance (could you cancel the insurance monthly payments and pay up front in cash to avoid "borrowing"). Also, I hate to say this but if this is a joint mortgage is there ANY chance your partner is withholding anything. I know it sounds unlikely/it wouldn't happen to me scenario but it can happen that there's secret borrowing or expenditure for other reasons (addiction, gambling etc) that you'd never know of.
I think the only way to know for sure is to speak asap to the lender, and get specifics, at the same time/asap speak to brokers who can work quickly and advise you on lenders who can move fast and might be less picky. Be prepared to be flexible (e.g. could you do a longer term, or get an IO mortgage and overpay etc). I'd also speak to your solicitor asap to see what they can do with the chain to protect you as much as possible, or if they've heard this lender do similar/have any ideas.

Never heard of this before, the solicitor should have confirmed with the lender before exchange, I know ours did as they wanted to ensure funds would be released in time as it was a quick turnaround.
Having said this we did get a mortgage offer within about 3 days with lloyds so it is possible to get a new offer.

To arrange the removal company, arrange insurance, book time off work, pack up the house and so on.

But it does make a difference, even if only small.

There are posters above writing that the limit itself is not taken into account; it is.

Don’t know if this is helpful (from Experian website):

The main consideration is your credit utilization rate—the comparison of current balances to credit limits on revolving accounts, mainly credit cards.
Follow these steps to calculate your utilization rate:

1. Add up all of your credit card balances.
2. Add up all of your credit limits.
3. Divide the total of your balances by the total of your limits.
4. Multiply by 100 to get a percentage.

Credit scoring models look at each revolving account's utilization rate as well as the overall rate across all accounts. In either case, it's best to keep your utilization under 30%. Those with the best credit scores tend to use under 10% of their available credit.

Interesting if some solicitors are more cautious than others as a matter of policy.

Do you have a broker? They can sort you a solution like a bridge loan ?

It’s not!

I hope you get this resolved quickly and they honour the agreed terms. Good luck with your move and wish you all thd best in your new home.

Estate agent here, in 25 years I’ve never heard of this before!

I

I bet they have mixed up your file with someone else's, or your joint applicant has hidden debt.

People want more time between exchange and completion because they think exchange is a guarantee that they'll be completing, it isn't as the OPs potential situation demonstrates. People want the time to make their arrangements but, as fellow lawyer @prh47bridge if you're doing it simultaneously you still make all your arrangements for completion date.
Most people, lots of evidence of it on this thread!, actually don't understand the conveyancing process, their mortgage offer or the risks.
During the 08 credit crunch we did a lot of simultaneous transactions for exactly this reason, that mortgages could be pulled if people lost their jobs or their financial circumstances changed.
Once you've exchanged you've committed to purchasing, your financial inability to do so due to a change in your mortgage is a you problem, not the seller's problem.
Simultaneous is not that unusual but the number of people on this thread saying they've never heard of it is a reflection of lack of understanding of the process. And I blame conveyancers and estate agents for that, clients need to have this stuff explained.