The FTB club

crabcakesfordinneragain

Had our offer accepted on Monday, since then I have

• Got our AIP
• Instructed solicitors
• Found a good quote for a full survey
• Run around like a lunatic making sure our deposit is hunky-dory (cashing out premium bonds, pulling money out of 5 yr old ISAs etc).
• Sent all the paperwork off for our formal mortgage offer

So I now I don't know what to do! How often do I chase broker re mortgage approval? Is it worth organising full structural before lenders do their survey? Is it worth calling solicitors to see if any paperwork is in yet?

Prob sound massively neurotic, but it's been such a busy week I don't know how to relax!

happytails

Update!

Our mortgage got approved. Just waiting for the details of the survey now!

However a recent spend has left me worrying if we will be a bit short on the money to re-wire when we get the keys GRRR!

Its been 24days since our offer was accepted x

Little_Monster_3

Still nothing back from our solicitors! We checked with the ea and the vendors solicitor sent back everything at the start of last week so not sure why the silence? Had several strange dreams about it all over the weekend!

Congratulations to those who have completed recently.

Framps

hopsicle wrote: »

Hi Framps, I'm in exactly the same situation.. offer accepted (subject to survey) on a house 30 days ago after it being on market less than a week. The survey came back with loads of things that need addressing, so now need to get builders quotes and start re-negotiating I guess...

I'd be grateful for any advice or tips from anyone at this stage

Hi hopsicle,

Well, we've got the formal mortgage offer and have gone back to the agent with a revised offer (initial offer -3.6%) - so fingers crossed!!

i've done quite a lot of research on how best to do this, but there doesn't appear to be a huge amount of info out there.

It seems that you can re-negotiate verbally / in writing via the agent or directly with the vendor or via your solicitor. Our solicitor advised that the agent / vendor routes where the quickest and easiest, but said the verbal or written decision was up to us.

The house that we are buying needs full renovation, so we split survey items between things that we were aware of when we made our initial offer and things that we could not have been aware of, e.g. sub-floor wet rot, non-visible damp etc. We took estimates on the work, taking three for items expected to cost thousands.

We then packaged the items that we wanted the vendor to assist with to come up with a revised offer. Deciding to do the negotiation verbally with the agent, we created a little cheat sheet containing all the items that we wanted to mention + extra details which we could provide, if pressed.

The agent took all the details and was very understanding - renegotiations are by no means rare, particularly on older properties, such as the one we are hoping to buy. He stated that the renegotiation was expected because we had arranged four separate visits to the property for different tradesmen to do estimates.

He did advise, however, that there were two buyers waiting in the wings should the deal fall through and that the vendor was aware of this. I did want to say that their surveys would throw up the same items, that the items are of material significance and are not visible to the naked eye, but I didn't - wish I had, but I'm hoping that this is understood from my statements on where the problems were...

Anyway, hoping that they do not pull the plug completely, and that at the very least they come back with a revised settlement, if not agree to our request in full. I'll let you know!!

hopsicle

Thanks Framps.

Although the survey has come back with 8-10 points that need attention, and 3 of them are recommended we sort out before completing, we have been given our mortgage offer at the full amount.

I was unaware of any problems at time of viewing and as it is a victorian terrace, I guess the (full structural) surveyor has covered himself to a large extent.

I'm arranging for a builder to come to the property for a professional opinion and quotes for all work that needs doing as well as quotes for the urgent work and we'll take it from there.

I guess we have less bargaining power if we have already been given the full mortgage offer though? They could argue that the works are not essential?

rs82uk

Have talked to Agent and Solicitor today and we are still waiting on this "home buyers pack" with regard to the management company. Sigh will be into week 10 tomorrow

kibs88

Heard from the Solicitor today, Nationwide have said that the valuation still stands and there are no problems with the coal report YAY!!!

Just have to wait until next week to get official paperwork from Nationwide to confirm that it is ok to proceed.

We are sorting all the deposit etc through, so as soon as all this goes through and the paperwork comes through it will be all go, hoping to complete on the 14th if not sooner!

Will be around 6 weeks from offer to exchange and 8 weeks from offer to completion. All this for a repo!

Oh well hopefully the wait will be worth it.

Any updates from others??
xx

Framps

hopsicle wrote: »

I guess we have less bargaining power if we have already been given the full mortgage offer though? They could argue that the works are not essential?

Your situation sounds very similar to ours.

I wouldn't say that you have less bargaining power necessarily, but certainly it could be used as a counter to your attempts at renegotiating.

A full mortgage offer just means that the surveyor has agreed with the valuation of the property in it's current state. Which is all well and good, except when your offer has been made on the basis of a different understanding of its current state. In that case you are well within your rights to renegotiate, assuming that the items were not ones recognisable to a lay person at the time of viewing. Of course the vendor is well within their rights to say no!

Definitely look at it from the inverse angle and see what you would think / do if you were in the vendor's position. Most people are reasonable folk - if you're being reasonable with them, there is a good chance they will be reasonable with you. And if they're not... well. there's no legislating for that!! Good luck and keep us posted!

mistrihelen

Hi all,

I'm a hopeful first-time-buyer. We've got an offer accepted on a repossession property and are now waiting to see if our mortgage gets approved.

However I'm very nervous, because I don't think we've got fantastic credit. A few years back we had to move unexpectedly and we were probably (I can't even remember exactly) late on paying credit cards a few times. We have a 10% deposit and the mortgage would be for just over twice our joint salary. We've applied with NatWest, but I've heard they are very strict on credit. I'm particularly nervous as we need to move quickly because it is a repossession and I don't know if we'd have time to try another lender. I'm kicking myself for applying through NatWest as we bank through HSBC and now I'm wondering if they would've been more likely to give us a mortgage. The reason we didn't use them is because they were so in demand we had to wait over a week just for an appointment.

*sigh* I've gone on too much. Good luck to everyone else buying at the moment.

ally81

We exchange and complete today! Everything is sorted and in place and the champagne is chilled. Very exciting!