Mortgage refused due to house having spray foam insulation in roof

[CurlyNo2]

We are first time buyers and found our dream house. Our mortgage application was sent to the underwriters who came back and declined our application due to spray foam insulation in the roof. We don’t have any further details only that it is not covered in their policy.

Does anybody have any experience of this?

Thanks

The problem we have is that HSBC have given us 15 days to rectify/or find an alternative property.

We got our mortgage application in the day before the interest rates rose drastically, so it’s currently frozen at the low rates but only for 15 days (well less now as days are ticking on). Looks like the seller is away on holiday, and we are getting radio silence from our estate agents so have no idea what is going on.

Its all such a mess! It doesn’t help that I’m pregnant and due in 12 weeks, so this added stress is not helping at all!

That’s awful for you, but going by DD’s experience, where the estate agent and vendor were both pretty cooperative and it still took several weeks, I’m afraid I can’t feel very confident it will get sorted quickly enough for you 😕

"The problem we have is that HSBC have given us 15 days to rectify/or find an alternative property."

I think you can see what you have to do.

Just wondered how you are getting on with this @CurlyNo2 ? And to say thank you as off the back of reading this I looked at some photos I had taken of the loft of a house we are in the early stages of buying and noticed the same thing! We have had the cost of a new roof knocked off fbe purchase price and hoping that we get through the mortgage valuation.

Hi, Ah I’m so glad that it’s helped you. Fingers crossed for you!

We are still waiting for the estate agents to get back to us with an update from the seller as they were getting some quotes on having it removed (even though the EA promised us an update on Tuesday 🤬). We are not hopeful if i’m really honest with you, but I’m not discounting it until we get a firm update from the sellers on what they are prepared to do.

Frustrating isn't it. When we looked around I actually looked in the loft and thought 'oh that looks well insulated, very neat!'

I'd avoid a house with spray foam in the roof like the plague. Will make resale a nightmare and costly to remove and/or repair the damage it will cause

OP: It might be worth asking to vendors to check with whoever installed the foam insulation. It might depend on the quality of the foam and whether it has a full BBA accreditation.

We have foam insulation in our attic. A while ago we saw a story about some lenders not offering mortgages on properties with a while ago and contacted the company to express our concerns. They sent us a list of lenders who were happy to to offer mortgages. That was:

Halifax
Santander
Nationwide
Atom bank
Barclays
Nat west
Bank or Ireland
Accord mortgages
Kensington
Aldermore
Virgin money
Newcastle Building Society

There were enough big names in there to assure us. They also said

Aviva who have been traditionally skeptical about spray foam insulation have also done their research and now understand that this is a superior product with no problems and are happy to lend.

The product has a full BBA Accreditation and has been installed by a BBA Accredited contractor in a manner that has been tested vigorously in the strictest of conditions. The installation method is documented on the BBA certification which is available to all. I have attached a copy and would suggest that the surveyor refers to the diagrams on page 11 that clearly shows the correct installation method.

If the surveyor is still being stubborn about this I would suggest that they call the BBA to discuss the product, installation methods and check that the installs that are in question collaborate with the certificates.^
^

We are not worrying about it. That's easy for me to say because our mortgage is paid off and we have no plans to sell. But at the moment we are seeing only benefits in terms of a warmer house and reduced energy costs.

Good luck, whatever happens.

Great to see that the company selling it says it is fine.

Roofers may disagree.

Well yes, of course the suppliers are going to say that it's fine.

But as the BBA is also happy with it, and they are the independent certification body for construction work and materials in the UK, that gives me some confidence.

We almost bought a house with this.

So glad we didn’t, the mortgage was refused by almost every buyers company. It went back on the market 4 times.
The seller ended up having to remove the roof and replace the beams before she could finally get rid of it!

I found reference to BBA certification for foam applied to breathable roofing membrane.

But AFAIK it is usually applied to the underside of tiles and laths In old lofts with no such membrane, and either no felt, or defective felt.

Which are the ones usually suffering from slipping tiles and water penetration.

Agreed, it is a scandal.
But so is the scandal of 'damp-proofing' and injecting DPCs. It seems the poor householder has no protection from it all. It's time these things were the subject of regulation.

It gives me none at all. They aren't going to be trying to sell a house down the line.
UK construction regulation is a total disgrace when it comes to things like insulation (including but not confined to cladding) and dodgy companies claiming to deal with damp problems.

We had no felt under our slates- which were parged with lime, which was, naturally, dropping off due to being 100 years old.
The solution is what we're having done- remove slates, clean slates, put in modern breathable felting, put on new battens, and reslate, using old slates when they are still in good nick (most of ours seem to be). The timbers are in excellent fettle, and should remain so with that solution- protected, dry, but still well ventilated.
I can understand that is expensive, I am facing the bill right now, but I always worry about cheap substandard solutions to problems- they tend to cost a lot more in the long run, and are often worse than doing nothing. Better to save the money up for a bit longer and have it done right where at all possible.

We went through exactly this just months ago. Our lender was Virgin Money and the list above of lenders who will lend with spray foam is not up to date. There was new guidance published in January by the lenders association and they are very hot on this now. It's also not the case that it only costs a few thousand to remove, it depends on so many factors.
In our case, we had a specialist roof survey, which put the cost of removal at £50k because it basically needed a whole new roof. Even though the vendors agreed to knock £50k off the sale price VM and three other lenders we tried would not lend on it until it was removed (100% retention). In the end the vendors had the work done. They managed to find a roofer to do it very quickly and we were concerned that it would be a bodge job but our lender (and us) insisted on a federated roofer to do the work with an insurance-backed guarantee. It also had to get sign off from building regs, who said it needed re-insulating with normal insulation to current standards so they did that too. Anyway, we're in! It was a total headache at the time but we got round it. We can still see the remains of some of the awful stuff in the loft but I don't hang out up there. They had sprayed it everywhere, even on the gable ends. It's bloody awful and everyone I spoke to said it should be illegal.
Our solicitor was excellent and he had 4 cases with the same issue concurrently to ours so he understood the problem very well. They are also legally required to declare spray foam to lenders now too.
Hopefully your vendor will agree to do the work, if not we would have walked away. We're really happy with the location and houses round here are like hens teeth so we didn't walk away but if you have more options, I would suggest looking at them.
Good luck!

Thanks everyone for your posts.

Update on our situation, the vendors are having the spray foam professionally removed and replaced with the traditional insulation this week.

The valuers are then going to go back out and take another look.

The roof is relatively new, maybe 1 year old so we will see what the outcome is this time.

Great outcome @CurlyNo2, all is not lost!

Thank you for updating as this bumped your thread up. I never knew this insulation was a bad thing to have 😮

I can't even comprehend why they had a new roof soray foamed. Should be banned

Hypothetically - would you contribute to the removal cost the seller is having to fork out?

No. They'd still have to deal with it if you pulled out of buying.

Wow! Really glad I found this! Never knew foam insulation was such an issue! Good luck op - keep us posted

Hello There

We are in exactly the same situation, although we are not first time buyers. We have been refused mortgages, Aug-Sept 22, by all of the following because of open cell spray foam insulation:
Santander; Halifax; NatWest; Scottish Widows; Virgin; Danske; Bank of Ireland; HSBC and currently waiting on a decision from Nationwide although they are making us jump through hoops at every step.
We have no problems getting the mortgage amount, some people may assume this from reading this, we have a hefty deposit from the sale of our previous property and have already been offered a higher mortgage amount for another property which unfortunately fell through. My advice, don't even bother with the other mortgage companies, go straight to Nationwide because they are at least getting as much info possible before making a decision.

How far did you get with all these lenders before they declined? We got an instant decline from hsbc and trying another now. If this one declines we are going to try and come to some agreement with the vendor to remove rather than keep trying. What has your vendor said about it?