Property alterations & mortgage companies

[DameFlatYouLent]

This is probably a stupid question, but I'm clueless about this.

We bought our first house recently, and before moving in we made some significant changes to the house (moved a bathroom, which involved making 2 bedrooms smaller). We didn't think to tell our mortgage company, and are now having an "argghh" moment. Should we have informed them before doing anything? And if so, wtf do we do now? I've tried googling to no avail, so am hoping the collective MN wisdom will save the day.

you don't have to inform your mortgage company about anything to do with the house or improvements.
They lend you the money on the basis of your wage.
if you alter the house and put on 30k profit they don't start charging you more. if you change and the house goes down in value 30k you still pay the same.
The house is yours - make it your home

When we extended our house a few years ago I phoned our mortgage company but they weren't interested at all! Relax

thanks annalouiseh, that's reassuring. I suppose our thinking was, if (God forbid!!) we've actually negatively affected the value of the property, the mortgage company, who technically own the house, would want to know. I would imagine we've increased the value, but obviously you never know!

x-post Daisy. Ok, starting to unclench!!

if you have changed the house for the better for you, the chances are when you re-sale there will be more on line of thinking than the numpties that lent you the cash.
when we renovated ours we had estate agents telling us what to sell it for compared to what other houses on the street sold for in prev yrs.
yet in our mind the ones we were compared to needed 10/20k spent on to get lto how we had done our, so we told them as they were our customer what we wanted and (lucky) we sold in a day in a recession.
a house is worth what it is worth to the buyer.

thanks, anna. And congrats on your house! Well done for sticking to your guns!

Our mortgage terms & conditions said that we had to inform them of any building works - forget the exact phrase. Anyway, we wrote to inform them before extending the house & they wrote back saying it was ok as long as the works didn't reduce the value (I guess they wouldnt be too happy if we devalued by e.g. reducing number of bedrooms).

So best to check your mortgage terms.

Thanks, Ponks. That's the kind of thing I was worried about - will dig out mortgage agreement. Trouble is, we don't really know what effect the changes will have had on the value of the house. It still has the same number of bedrooms, but 2 are now smaller, and the bathroom which used to be downstairs in an extension (and was horrible) is now upstairs (and is lovely!). Would we potentially need to get it revalued?

We certainly haven't told ours about our building works, didn't even occur to us. It would be a rare set of renovations that significantly devalued a house. Also, usually once you have a mortgage that's it, as long as you are still making the repayments! If you take a new job with a significantly lower salary, for instance, you don't have to tell your bank, even though if you reapplied for the same mortgage with the lower salary you wouldn't get it.

Quick thought also - you may be required to tell your insurance company too while you are having work done on the house e.g. if you are having an extension built. Again, read the terms & conditions. Was mentioned in ours.

i would seriously chill out, love!

scenario in 99.99 per cent of cases is
a) you will pay the mortgage off one day
b) you will sell the house and pay off the mortgage

as long as you pay off the mortgage, nobody will care.

if you are ever in a situation where they repossess the house, i would think you would have far greater things to worry about!! Also, its on their books as a 2 bedroom, one bathroom house. It still is- nobody will ever know.

relax now.

ok, chilling out! Thanks all.