FTB - what is the process of buying a house?

swingjune

New to this country and not sure about the buying process.
Appreciate your kind info:beer:

brit1234

Save a huge deposit and wait would be my advice at the moment. Cut your outgoings and save more.:beer:

KiKi

To answer the question in broad terms (obviously, all sales are different, but):

1 - Work out what sort of mortgage you can afford (at the moment, most would advise 3 to 3.5 times your salary or income)

2 - Save for a 10% deposit and stamp duty. You'll also need to budget for solicitors fees, surveys, disbursements, moving costs - say, £2K to be on the safe side.

3 - Get a mortgage offer in principle from a lender, preferably through a 'whole of market' broker who can find you a deal to suit your needs

4 - Find a solicitor to do all the legal work for you (usually go on recommendation from someone who has used them). Get quotes from a few solicitors to make sure you're paying a fair price, and most importantly, make sure you get a FULL breakdown of all the costs you will be charged for

5 - Find a house you like

6 - Put an offer in, usually lower than the asking price, and negotiate to a price you're happy with

7 - Pass the solicitor's details to the Estate Agent selling the place and they will start the process between the seller's solicitor and your solicitor

8 - Get a survey done on the house, ASAP. There are three levels:
* Valuation (done by the mortgage lender, merely to ensure the house is worth what you're paying for it)
* Homebuyer's survey - will assess the house and check out the basic functions inside it
* Full structural survey - will fully assess the structural stability of the property

9 - Assuming all is fine with the survey, the legal stuff will then happen through the solicitors, behind the scenes. You might have to send stuff to them, or answer questions, but they'll tell you if they need stuff. You will certainly have to get the mortgage from the lender confirmed and sign it

10 - Exchange contracts - your solicitors will 'exchange' contracts, at which point you are as committed as you can be, signing the contract to say you'll buy the place, and the seller signs to say they'll sell it to you. Pulling out after this point will incur *significant* costs; it's considered to be pretty much a done deal at this point.

11 - Usually two weeks later (although it can be sooner depending on the circumstances), you will 'Complete' on the property. This is when the money all exchanges hands, your mortgage is applied to the property, the sellers are paid for the property, and you are the owner.


You don't *have* to do all these in this order - you might want to find a solicitor and get quotes first. Or you might end up seeing a place you like before you get a mortgage offer from a lender, so 3-5 might be different for you.

But this is a very *basic* outline. Hope it helps.

KiKi

trudiha

You phone a couple of banks or mortgage brokers, they are all sure that the have exactly the right deal for you and send you off to find a place.

You look on Rightmove, see a few houses you like and phone the appropriate estate agents, who seem totally uninterested in selling you a property but finally concede that they will have to include it as some kind of add on if they are going to sell you a mortgage and their conveyancing services.

You go and see the house, you are utterly shocked at how some people live. At this point you will probably go home, have a very long shower, get into bed and not get out for a couple of days.

Finally you find a house that you don't have to wipe your feet on the way out of, you remind yourself that all of the velvet pictures of Elvis will have to be removed by the current owner before you move in and convince yourself that it will all be alright.

You make an offer on the house, the estate agent laughs in your face. The estate agent phones back a day/week/month later agreeing to the price.

You phone the bank or mortgage broker you had initially spoken to, they might pretend not to remember you are they might go to the trouble of explaining how much the market has changed since your last conversation a week ago and how they can't offer you a mortgage anymore.

You find another bank.

At this stage the confident approach a solicitor, the less robust wait until the survey has been completed and the mortgage offer is in writing. You should keep the paper stuffed envelopes that the solicitor sends, once you are paying a mortgage, draft proofing won't come cheap.

I'm not sure about the next bit, solicitors do something to each other, it's a long, drawn out process, eventually you get another thick envelope with a contract in. This contract may well have been sent sentence by sentance to your own solicitor considering the amount of time it's taken and judging by the fees, you are paying the postage.

You hand over a heartbreaking amount of money and a week later the estate agent phones to say that he will start charging rent for the keys if you don't come and pick 'em up.

MonkeySaving?

swingjune wrote: »

New to this country and not sure about the buying process.
Appreciate your kind info:beer:

You move right back to wherever you came from, this country is SH*T

bubblesmoney

unless u r a cash buyer u might find that until u have a decent credit history in uk and decent deposit (above 25%) u might not get a mortgage. oh things depend on ur visa and job and income and when ur visa expires and in some banks like hsbc they do look into if it has been renewed before. by they if u are on a time limited visa, with visa rules changing frequently, or if u r on a work permit, come visa renewal time u might find that u r not wanted anymore in uk and might have to make a distress sale if u buy a house or might have to make a sale once u r no longer able to live in the uk. the info u provided on ur situation is too less to comment on.

neverdespairgirl

If you are needing to borrow, on a mortgage, you might well have trouble. The lenders will look at your immigration status, credit record in the UK, etc.

Andy_G_3

trudiha wrote: »

You phone a couple of banks or mortgage brokers, they are all sure that the have exactly the right deal for you and send you off to find a place.

The last 3 mortgage brokers I phoned wouldn't deal with me as I hadn't had an offer accepted :mad:

They all told me to get in touch once an offer had been accepted and then they would discuss mortgage products...........

swingjune

Thanks for your info :beer:

Hubby holds a EU passport and I have a British family visa to live here permanently. OH is in IT and he is earning good income. We have savings of GBP150k, so getting a mortgage is not an issue. I got in touch with a 'wholesale' mortgage broker and he has a mortgage promise done for us very quickily.

We have not view any house, just monitoring the house prices and new listing on Rightmove (using Property Bee :T)

If we saw our dream house, we might just start the ball rolling :eek: