Buyer's support thread #5

[scribblegirl]

Sorry for breaking the last one

and for all....

I'm sitting on a mattress on the floor. :) It's wonderful! Dh is coordinating the big move tomorrow, so tonight we will be eating pizza out of boxes in the echoing kitchen/diner. He's on his way with a few more bits and dinner now.

I seriously can't believe we own a house, and that it's this one. Happy sigh.

Oh step. I'd be fuming. Ugh!

Yay Reading go us with our new houses!

Yessssss!

Oh lovely. The camping out when it's not properly moved in bit is excellent.

I still have memories of moving house when I was 6. I remember driving down in a car loaded with stuff and us all sleeping together on a mattress and sleeping bags in the bedroom.

My DH would never be up for that. We have to get in and get the beds up and made ASAP because he cannot accept that a bit of camping is part of the fun.

Congratulations to everyone in the process of actually moving in! That's amazing!

I was wondering if I could ask for some advice about credit checks (sigh!). We've been working with a mortgage broker who did a couple of applications for AIPs with companies that leave 'soft' searches, but they offered 90% mortgages rather than the 95% we were gunning for. It briefly looked likely that we might be able to pull the extra deposit money together but this prospect currently seems to be vanishing into the tall grass. However, I opened a Help-to-Buy ISA with Nationwide a few months ago and have just discovered that they offer 95% mortgages specifically to customers with HTB ISAs with them.... but their AIP application involves a hard credit check.

The problem is I'm an absolute ignoramus about all this and I have the 'you want to avoid loads of credit checks!' line running through my head. Would going for an AIP with Nationwide (which, if they offered as 95%, would make life a lot simpler for us) then drag down our credit rating down meaning we couldn't even get the 90% mortgage with another bank should we end up carrying through on the offer made in our other AIP? It's so confusing...!

Basically - does 'avoid lots of credit checks' mean, 'avoid doing dozens at once', or do even a couple have a big impact?

I think you might be over thinking things.

If you applied to Nationwide and got a AIP then you would submit a full application.

Why do you think you would need more than one AIP?

My soft credit searches didn't even show on my credit file - I could see that they had been done but they didn't affect anything in the same way insurance quotes don't.

Nationwide AIPs leave a 'hard' footprint according to what I can discover online. Whereas the other lender we're looking at (Halifax) does a soft search, but this means they then do a hard search when you make the full application. We've got an AIP from Halifax for a 90% mortgage already (which they offered us after we asked for 95%). If Nationwide offered us 95% (which they might due to having the added catch of you already needing to bank with them to get their Save to Buy mortgage) then that would be really helpful, but my worry is that if they come back saying no, it'll only be 90% then we'll be in the same position as before but with a hard check on our credit records. Does that make any sense?!

I've just checked my Credit Expect account and I can't even see that I've got a mortgage ( I wasn't on the one for our last house due to poor credit at the start).

I think the issue with credit scoring is where you've got searches recorded for furniture retailers and credit cards and new cars etc. all in a short period of time. I think that gives the impression that you're taking out a lot of credit and could either be in trouble financially or taking on more credit than looks safe.

I think more than one search for a mortgage would be ok as you wouldn't be getting two mortgages and it's normal to have an AIP with one lender but then switch when you buy to a better offer or newer deal.We have two credit checks on our records because our previous lender credit checked us without our consent because we were coming to the end of a consent to let period. Our previous lender was a total shower of shite and we are currently on our third complaint to them - last time they compensated us to the tune of £8k so you'd think they'd learn .

It's been 11 years since our last mortgage application and I can't believe how many times I've had to flash my passport!

We've had a slight delay while the accountants ratify DH's last set of accounts (might have helped if they had told us that our accountant was on holiday last week ) but it should all be done on Monday.

Just to clarify you have an AIP with Halifax but you don't want that you want to see if you can get an AIP with Nationwide?

Do you have a 10% deposit for your Halifax mortgage?

Reading back I think you didn't have the deposit anyway so you must have lied to get the AIP for the 90% LTV?

We've now officially pulled out of my house purchase thanks to the survey. It's a shame - we're getting married in a couple of weeks, so would've been great to have somewhere to move into together. After telling the surveyor we were pulling out, he said we would have difficulty selling it in the future due to the work that had been done, so I'm convinced it was the right choice.

Now I really hope I can find somewhere close to the train station that looks as nice (and this time is a bit more structurally sound)

We had 3 AIPs. We used different figures for our deposit as we were trying to work out whether it would be better if I pay off my student loans or credit card. In the end we reduced our deposit so we had enough to pay stamp duty without having to borrow some from a parent and we can borrow enough to avoid paying off my student loans. I wouldn't say that was lying, that was just trying to work out which way worked best for us. Ours was done through a broker.

It's gutting pulling out of a purchase, isn't it? When in your head you've already moved in, shared out the bedrooms, re-decorated, decided on the extra furniture you need, looked into the fun things you can do near the house.
Since pulling out we've had a survey on house 2. More problems, though may be surmountable. I feel less keen on both house and area, but there would be a number of practical advantages - eg a second bathroom which would be handy.

Oh Adrienne that's such a shame but as my friend said about one place we missed out on, you may have dodged a very expensive bullet.

Are you going to keep looking or take some time off before the wedding?

No - we didn't lie. We put in details of income etc for the Halifax AIP, requesting a LTV of 95% on £160k - they then returned an AIP saying they'd lend us above that amount but only on a LTV of 90%. We have been considering selling off an asset of my DHs but for various reasons this has proved trickier and slower than we expected and we don't think we can rely on it for the deposit.

The Nationwide mortgage hadn't been an option suggested by our broker as you can only get it directly with them, hence asking for advice on here about credit checks... seems a bit cheeky to ask him for advice on a mortgage we wouldn't ultimately be getting through him!

Cankles, thank you, that's very helpful!

We had 3 AIPs, all from Natwest but for different amounts. We didn't want to be offering in houses at £350k with an AIP that said we could actually spend £500k, because it would probably cause the EA to try to push us up further. So we had an AIP to buy at £375k, £400k and £450k (the bank were willing to lend us absolutely silly money, but we didn't want to have huge repayments so we declined anything higher).

Step - our 3 AIPs were with Natwest too. So far I quite like them.

Natwest have been absolutely fine for us. They were really quick in arranging the mortgage too, and kept us up to date with it all. And they were totally happy to give us AIPs for all sorts of different amounts so we could use them strategically.

step I wish we had done the same as you. We actually refused to send the AIP to the EA for that very reason as our lender we willing to loan us something stupid like £750k which we were never ever going to borrow. Our IFA emailed the EA to say that we could borrow what we needed to to finance the purchase and they accepted that.

Is anyone else jittery about the brexit impact on house price headlines in the papers today? I am worried about the price going down plus DH works in finance so I don't know what the impact would be on his contracts. On the other hand if we do leave my understanding is that our 2.5% five year fix offset will be completely unobtainable. Gahhh! Talk about bad timing!

I feel a bit anxious and also quite worried about increased interest rates. I think we will be saving immediately to cover any interest rises whilst we are on a low fixed rate.

Hi all, new to the thread!

Currently 20 weeks pregnant and had an offer excepted on a new house after weeks and weeks of viewings. The sensible house, not our dream one :)

We are currently living in a shared ownership property which my oh bought, luckily an area which is up and coming so have managed to get the deposit from the sale of the share.

We went to full application last week with our mortgage broker, lender asked for something on Friday so we know they have it. We've instructed solicitors and paid them some money for searches.

Vendor wants to complete by end of June as their seller is moving abroad. We told them it's unlikely as it depends on our sale going through quick with the housing association. They were ok but I'm hoping this does not cause problems later.

Anxious about the mortgage application, will have about 5k of cc balances on completion. Broker says it should be fine but fingers crossed!

Eek! Sorry for the long post. We are technically first time buyers as the process for shared ownership was nothing like buying outright so totally in the unknown!!

Question - do we arrange the full survey or does someone else arrange it? Ie. Lender or solicitor?