Home Buyers' Support Thread, Part 4

[BeaufortBelle]

Here we go.

Good luck everybody x

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/2139089-Home-Buyers-Support-Thread-Part-3?pg=40

Ours is up for sale now but don't have the mortgage appointment till next Friday. NatWest make you see a general advisor first who said she didn't think there would be a problem but the mortgage advisor would need to take a look. He's next Fri. She said they advise not applying for a mortgage till the house is on the market. So what happens next Fri if he says we can't have one and ours is already up for sale!!!
Felkov hope you manage to find a plan b.

Our mortgage is with natwest, fingers crossed the DIP isn't leading us Up the garden path. The mortgage part seems straight forward so far, solicitors on the other hand - how do you decide

Fellow I hope something gets sorted.

Thanks everyone. We applied with Santander. They won't accept my DH salary as he's on a zero hrs contract, but they also decided to include all his expenses like our car (in his name only) as if they were my expenses so they decided we couldn't afford it. This is despite us checking all these type of questions with a broker and only asking for

Hi, could I join?

DH and I put an offer in 10 days ago which is still being considered, it's only 5k under so I fear they may just be the world's most indecisive sellers- even though they've already moved out

After 2 weeks(1) the vendor of the house we want to buy has decided that the amount of our new offer is acceptable but we wants to know more about the chain. He also has a second viewing from someone else today, our chain is quite long so I'm worried the competition will be in a better position than us :(

Our buyers mortgage surveyor is coming round today so at least our sale is progressing but I'm scared they'll come back with a lower valuation.

Felkov, NatWest told me the same. Because I'm on a zero hours contract she said they couldn't use my earnings and would put me down as a housewife!

Can I join too? Want to know if IABU or whether this is now ridiculous?

Had an offered accepted May 20th. Am chain free and offer was on basis of entry on July 3rd. 3 weeks later, and I still don't have a confirmed entry date and the selling solicitor is ignoring my extremely frustrated lawyer.

I don't think there's a problem, but am becoming beyond frustrated now. The property is empty (being sold by an executor) so I fully believe the issue is with the selling solicitor. Is there anything I can do short of getting a voodoo doll out?!

Can I join too? Read almost the entire thread last week while waiting for a final mortgage decision - finally been told today that the offer's in the post! To be fair it has taken just under two weeks from application to offer so I suppose that's quite good with no broker. Feel more like a legitimate buyer now.

Agree that DIPs are, for some banks, almost useless but Felkov it sounds like your broker has been pretty rubbish! I would try and find a specialist mortgage advisor who is used to being 'creative' to find a lender who will accept you? We (DP) have adverse credit issues and only 5% deposit and still managed to get one in the end so I'm almost certain it would be possible.

Good luck for everyone waiting for offers to progress! Seems to be a few...

What is it with solicitors and banks eh? are they just out to screw things up?

we've made a new mortgage application with a new broker so fingers crossed its better news this time. I'm still fuming about the cock ups of the first one but then to add insult our solicitor just told the sellers solicitors that our first mortgage application didn't go ahead, so of course the sellers have completely panicked and are now remarketing the house. I really really don't want to lose it. took us 6 months of looking to find and its just perfect for us aaagh!!

anyone made any progress this week on exchanges?

Hot everything crossed for you Felkov. Sounds beyond stressful.

We are about a month in now and waiting for survey results on the house we are buying but mortgage is approved. Our buyers wanted to get a quote to do some work raised in the survey on our house so have a feeling they might want some money off. The people who came to quote weren't that concerned about the work though and said that it's to be expected in houses of this age (1880s). Most of the searches are back on the house we are buying except for LA search. Just wish I knew how long it will all take.

*Have not hot!

Confused now!
Customer advisor said don't apply for mortgage till house on the market but she thinks we will be OK for mortgage.
House on marketmarket now so she passed us to mortgage advisor whowho rang yesterday and said don't apply for mortgage till we have a definite buyer. Er...house is up for sale and you can't tell me if we can have a mortgage till its sold from under us? Can we get the survey done on the house were buying and sort the credit checks before applying so it'll be quick to get the application back? Hopefully he'll make more sense on Fri at our appointment!

I'm back at square one after pulling out following a dreadful survey. Got my mortgage agreed (subject to survey) and deposit ready to go, sols instructed etc but there is nothing that even vaguely fits the bill on the market. I suppose I just have to sit tight until September when things pick up again. Really frustrating.

Hello! Just trawled through virtually the entire thread in between googling what on earth we should be doing now.

We only decided to buy a few weeks ago (hadn't thought we could afford it, then got chatting to a school run mum who is a mortgage broker and she ran the numbers and we could, hurrah!), saw a house last week and have had an offer accepted, only £2,500 below the asking price (market is fast and buoyant here for first-time-buyer sized houses, especially for properties that only need cosmetic work doing, which is what we hope is the case with this one) but we feel it's a fair price. It's a 1970s dormer bungalow with spectacularly ugly interior decor, but a functioning (hideous) bathroom, a reasonably new (hideous) kitchen and delightful textured wallpaper and burgundy shagpile carpets throughout.

We have an OIP (which probably isn't worth the paper it's written on) and I am terrified that we will get rejected in the official application as we have recently restructured our debts (in preparation for buying maybe next year, then suddenly discovered we could buy this year) and we only have 10% deposit. And I am self employed (although DH is the main breadwinner). The broker thinks we can make it work though.

The EA is hassling me to appoint a solicitor (she wants me to appoint their 'recommended' one, obv), but from reading around, it seems that there's little point getting the solicitor working on things until the mortgage application is approved. Or is that all wrong? Should I get the solicitor going on the conveyancing before the mortgage application goes through? the broker is coming round on Weds and I wonder if I should wait until she's been round as I gather some banks make you use a solicitor from a panel? So confused! And I'm quite an intelligent person!

The house is chain free and empty and should be a straightforward purchase [hollow laugh], but we are trying to remain conservative and hoping to be moving in 12-16 weeks (Autumn half term) assuming no major dramas with mortgage application or surveys. EA keeps confidently saying we will be moving in 8 weeks.

Morning all. Anyone else planning to hit the phones this morning and do some chasing? I'm hoping our new broker can get things moving but the new lender wants a reference from my work and insisting on contacting them directly themselves rather than allowing me to submit reference request. sounds a bit weird to me but maybe there's nothing to worry about

Hopefully good luck. 8 weeks sounds unrealistic to me. I did once move within 8 weeks of making an offer but it was a cash purchase of a 2yr old flat in pristine condition and we still only managed the timescale by agreeing to exchange/complete on the same day. was very stressful even without needing a mortgage!!

I'm going to stick with my internal 12-16 week timeframe to stop me going bananas with inevitable delays etc.

The mortgage application is just a constant back-of-the-mind stress, so I can't even begin to get stressed about everything else until that's sorted. I did do a quick online calculator thing yesterday and it looks like we'll definitely get some sort of an offer, just perhaps not the best rate in the world. The main thing I want is the ability to over pay, as even with a fairly high interest rate our mortgage repayments will still be around £300 a month less than current rent.

Can I join this thread?

We accepted an offer back in May and had our offer accepted in June.

Surveys are tomorrow

I'm so fed up of waiting for news, I don't know what I can do to speed things up either.

Almost regretting putting the move before its even started as I just want to not think about it any more

Hi Ozzia. Fingers crossed things start to move after the survey for you! I am sort of dreading and sort of looking forward to getting on to all of that!

Felkov did you get anywhere with your chasing yesterday?

No progress here yet. the bank have apparently sent a letter requesting a reference but my HR dept haven't received it yet. Goodness knows how long it'll take as I work for a huge company who get thousands of letters to HR.

We had the survey back on the house we're buying and it is way more work than expected; rewiring, rebuilding single storey extension and chimney stacks etc. Bit scared and we have no idea how much this will all cost now.

Our survey is back, some work I expected, some I don't care about as long term we would be fixing any way but some that I'm worried could be costly fixes.

So my plan is to get quotes to fix the bits I'm worried about but then what? If it's a lot of money am I within my rights to ask for a price reduction? Or am I stuck?

I would say no harm in asking, but obviously be prepared for the vendors to say no or at least negotiate! I did it a couple of yrs ago when buying a Victorian conversion. the vendor agreed to get the essential work done before I moved in instead of reducing the price which actually worked out very well

Argh we still don't have a house to buy!

We out in an offer over a month ago on a house, vendor was dithering, then went on holiday. EA finally got some communication from him yesterday but she just said this:

I have heard back from the vendor now.

Firstly can I say thank you for your patience for waiting this long.

The owner has emailed me today. I have not yet managed to get a firm yes or no answer for you. I believe this for two reasons which are that the property he was interested in buying has been sold and that there is another party that has been keen to have a second viewing.

I have asked him for an answer either way as I appreciate you want to know whether or not to proceed with other properties. Would you be willing to wait for him to find another house?

I don't think he actually wants to sell

Our buyers had their mortgage survey a couple of weeks ago, not heard anything about the structural survey yet but all seems to be progressing OK so we need too find somewhere.

The market has gone completely dead with the holidays although we've got 2 viewings tomorrow but they are at the top of our budget so that makes me nervous.

Oh bananamonkey don't bother with him unless you have to. A) the chain above him is not set up in any way by the sounds of it, so you will be no closer to selling/moving and it won't appease your buyers B) he sounds like a grade A piss-taker and that will carry on through the whole conveyancing process.

Really hope you find something you like tomorrow. If the market is slow and one of them has already found something, maybe you'll get away with a lower offer?

We're back in the game after our third attempted purchase fell through. Found a great house, owners are moving to a small village to be near their daughter and grandchildren. Property they are buying is chain-free. They've agreed to exchange by 7th November which is my due date for DC2 . They have not moved for 43 years which scares me. I am so worried about them changing their mind after having a survey. We are not bothering with a survey as I can't waste any more money on them but we have had to pay £480 (!!) for a mortgage valuation up front.

I just feel sick and hopeless at going through this again. We had to pull out of something else we had had an offer accepted on because the chain was not going anywhere and I feel dreadful about that and keep thinking it will come back to bite us. The chain was not set up, so at least no-one had spent any money, but I still feel shit.

I just cannot live in this awful rental any more. I had not rented in years and had no idea how horrible it would be. The stress of living in cramped, damp, mouldy conditions with stuff breaking down is making me depressed and I'm really worried about still being here when the new baby arrives. Not that it's any good for my 2-year old either. Anyone thinking of breaking the chain and renting, don't do it! Unless you can afford to spend at least 50% more than your current mortgage for an indefinite period... I just wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

Hi everyone, I've just caught up with recent stuff and consider myself massively naive to the whole process.

My Gran passed away at the start of the year and left us enough for a deposit (DH and I have rented for almost 20 years and have 2 young DC's).
We put in an offer at a house we liked and our offer was accepted. So far so good, sadly the valuation has come in £10k under the offer price giving us a huge dilemma. We don't have another £10k knocking about, and whilst we didn't stretch ourselves to breaking with the mortgage, the penalty for trying to borrow more is pretty big (takes to less than 10% deposit). We have no savings left - it's all waiting for stamp duty and deposit etc.

The EA thinks it's down to us to come up with the extra, but short of loading up a credit card (and plunging us into more debt), I don't know where we find it.

Should be accept we are going to have to walk away?