Now I know we need to talk to our financial adviser about this, and that the answer would probably depend on which mortgage provider we're going to.... BUT generally speaking:
We're about to put our house on the market and might hope to put an offer in on something else within the next month or so. We'd like to look at getting an agreement in principle before starting, but failing that could certainly be applying for a mortgage in a few weeks.
We're in the very fortunate position of being given a substantial lump sum from my mum, which will go towards the house. She suspects this could take two or three months to materialise, ie to cash in her investments. Does the money actually need to be in our account before applying for the mortgage? Would lenders take some other form of evidence that we're about to have it?
I'll call in and talk to our mortgage man tomorrow but this has just come to light and we'd like to have some idea this evening if we're going to have to wait another couple of months untill it's sorted. Thanks in advance...