Our house is unmortgageable. I want to cry!

[Holls81]

Just wondering if anyone else has had this, especially recently.

In the past we’ve owned 2 properties built in the late 1800 and never had a problem getting a mortgage for either.

our current home was built in 1890.

we had no problem getting a mortgage on this either- in fact we just fixed again with the mortgage lender we’ve had for the last 5 years.
we recently applied for £10k on our mortgage to do some home improvements (re rendering etc which should add value) but it was declined. Not on the grounds that we couldn’t afford it, but on the grounds that the surveyor deemed our property as unmortgageable due to the original part of the house being single skin.

I had no idea that this would be an issue I spoke to the lender and they said it’s a blanket rule across all properties which are single skin (ie. Pre cavity wall - 1930’s builds.)

im now worried that we’ll never be able to sell our house as no one will ever be able
to get a mortgage on it, plus we’re paying a lot of money each month for a house that may never be worth anything now.

I feel sick!

Go elsewhere. Single brick or stone houses are very common and are certainly mortgageable.

Single brick, as in a single leaf of bricks laid end to end, which is what the OP has described, is not at all common. Hence her problems.

Wow!!!! I didn’t know this……

@MsMcG thanks for explaining. I didn't realise this when I said we'd recently bought a single skin property. I meant ours was solid wall rather than cavity. It was built in 1910

@MsMcG you’ve helped me so, so much- with the clarity, the information, and from an anxiety point of view! I honestly can’t thank you enough! To hear that sometimes these things do come up and that sometimes you just have to prove it’s structurally sound is good to hear. I can but hope. I’m still puzzled as to why you’d only (obviously at a later date) add another layer of block to the downstairs original wall, but not the upstairs 🤷‍♀️
in these instances, if it comes back as not structurally sound, do these things tend to be fixable?

Please don’t worry yourself. Everything is fixable!

Speaking as someone that’s finally come to the end of a £50K subsidence insurance claim! There’s specialist techniques to fix most building problems but I think this is down more to the mortgage lender’s appetite for risk than anything else.

You will get a mortgage, just go through a broker who knows which lenders are happy with your property type. It doesn’t have to be any more expensive. Don’t just apply to other lenders without checking though or you’ll muddy the waters with too many credit searches.

We used Graham at https://www.mortgage-find.me/steel-framed-buildings/ - there’s no link for your type of building but this one shows the sort of oddball things he said he has to deal with from time to time. We thought he was great but do your own research, YMMV etc.

Hope you get sorted soon!

Erm we got one with Barclays no issue

Hmm direct me to the legislation around this please

@Holls81 You could always ask for a report from a surveyor or structural engineer for peace of mind. If you want to know whether it’s structurally sound, the engineer would be the best bet.

I am married to a structural engineer. I will ask his opinion.

Some basic questions to ascertain why the mortgage has not been approved:

Who said the house is single skinned? You, when you applied? A surveyor who visited the property etc?

If it was you, it seems as though there is confusion between single skinned and brick built, were you asked for the construction type when you applied for the extra 10k? If so di you say single skinned? Was it done online and what options were there for construction type?

If it was a surveyor, did they visit the house or was it just a drive by?If they visited how did they check the walls? Are they rendered? Or are the bricks visible? If it was a drive by, how could the construction and depth of walls/bricks be seen from a car?

This situation could by a simple case of the wrong terminology being used, an error by surveyor or impossible to see in a drive by valuation, or computer says no scenario - brick construction being deemed single skin, when it is not.

If you are trying other mortgage lenders I would want to be very sure what the construction is - it may not be single skinned.

Every house in my area is single skin. Find a different mortgage company - ours is with Santander. House built in 1890.

If your walls really are spookily thin you can have your house clad to make them more carbon neutral. Not cheap but saves on energy and adds value. We didn’t need that but we improved our EPC by two ratings through insulation, double glazing and fitting a door lobby.

Yep. About a third of all properties in London are Victorian and therefore single skin. To not lend on such properties seems bizarre. Obviously the OP knows what she is talking about so I’m not saying she got it wrong, but this can’t be a general thing among mortgage lenders or about 40% of the nation’s housing stock will be unmarketable.

Seems to be pot luck. We moved in 2021, our buyers had a mortgage in principle woth same lender we had our mortgage with. 5 years previously we had no issues securing mortgage no mention of single skin in our survey. Our buyers had to go to another lender as surveyor reported our house was single skin on second floor. It's the same build as about 50% of the towns houses. Brick ground floor and breeze block with cladding on the first floor. Seems to have been the fashion in 1960s/1970s when the town was built.
I honestly wouldn't too worried things and surveyors change

I’m sat in London in a Victorian house on in an area full of thousands of Victorian houses. It cannot be possible to be unmortgageable. It’s never come up from our Victorian flat or Victorian terrace. That seems very strange I can’t see that being correct given the millions of houses in the UK pre 1930s.

That’s bonkers. Think of all the Victorian housing stock in the UK.

@Notellinganyone If you read the explanations upthread, you'll probably find that those are solid wall not single skin. Single skin apparently it's bricks laid lengthways with the thickness of the wall only the width of the brick i.e not the length of the brick.

No they’re not. The majority of Victorian houses are not single skin, they may be solid wall but they will be double brick thickness…..most of them.

@TizerorFizz oh thank you so much. People on here are so kind. I think I might be able to sleep a little tonight 🙂

I don't get it, surely if your property has a single skin you shouldn't have been given a mortgage for the property in the first place. You said you'd recently fixed your mortgage on a fixed rate for a set period of time. Are you are wanting a further advance (additional borrowing) on your current mortgage, as I don't understand why they have now declined it based on it having single skin. Unless you are taking a secured loan with another company?

@SparklyShoesandTutus this is really interesting. I think the lenders are being hugely more stringent at present as are just not keen to lend! So was yours brick and breeze block on lower floor? That’s what ours is like. Then I believe some kind of thinner structure upstairs, which i presume still consists of one layer of original brick but doesn’t look quite thick enough to be 2 bricks thick. Can’t see for definite though as house is rendered

OP I asked previously, who said it is single skin and are you using this terminology when discussing it with mortgage companies?

If the house is rendered, without taking the render off there will be no definitive answer as to its construction.

This is not a criticism but you seem to have accepted your mortgage companies decision that your home is single skinned, I would doubt very much it is, so your efforts should be asking your mortgage surveyor to prove it is, if they realise they may be wrong, you may be able to stay with your current mortgage company.

Some other companies will ask the question, have you been refused a mortgage - which technically you have, which could cause issues.

They're really not thinking this through, are they?

@schloss so sorry, I must have missed this. It all got a bit busy earlier!
That’s a very good point.
we’ve not discussed with any other lender yet. We were hoping to put the £10k on to our existing mortgage but seeing as it didn’t work, we’re going to have to look at an alternative solution. We don’t want to pay the fee to come out of the fixed term early.
The house is rendered so you’re quite right! I should be trying to prove that they’re wrong! We have raised a complaint with the mortgage company over various things so I’m sitting tight for now and eagerly awaiting their response. We’ve just decorated the whole of downstairs and it’s looking lovely but I just want to fall in love in my house again and not worry that my wall’s going to fall down!

No need to apologise at all! Sorry on my part for 2 more questions:

Did a surveyor visit from the mortgage company?

If not, who mentioned single skinned?

The reason I am asking - our mortgage company sent a basic surveyor to visit when were purchasing, not a problem getting the mortgage but we were advised, he was concerned about the " block single skinned construction in some parts of the property and single skin may compromise structural soundness" (not verbatim!) The house needed extensive renovation so we had already had a full survey done, but even without that we knew the description provided by the mortage company wasn't quite right - it was block and could with a fair wind be described as single skin - the issue was the blocks are local granite and in the older parts of the house are 5ft thick!

Mortgage companies do not always get it right and tick boxes on a computer can give a no answer when if a person is involved and understands the property is of brick construction, it does not mean it is single skinned.

Do you have the documents from when you originally purchased the property, is there a survey? It is likely to give a description of the house - hopefully if you have that with the construction details you can use it as evidence for the mortgage company.