mortgages on pre-fabricated houses

heatherd_2

We bought a house from our local council two years ago for a reasonable price but because our house is an airey building (prefabricated with steel inside and concrete outside) we had problems getting a mortgage and ended up buying the house with a 12% mortgage which crippled us. We wanted to buy this because we had lived in the house for a few years and were settled there and went ahead with the mortgage as the broker told us the right to buy was going to stop which we later found to be untrue.

We have now re-mortgaged but this cost a lot of money in redemption fees etcetra. We would like to remortgage again in a couple of years when we are no longer tied in to our current mortgage deal and wonder how to find out which companies will lend on these properties.

Our credit rating wasn't wonderful at the time so this may also have had an impact.

Any ideas?

HelpWhereIcan

I would say that the best way will be to speak with a whole of market, no fee broker or two to ensure that you get balanced advice. The lenders who accept properties of non standard construction all have a list of construction schemes they will accept (not all accept all schemes). Unless you are happy phoning around, you will generally need to use a broker particularly if you have a less than perfect credit history as most lenders do not publish their 'property guidelines' as widely as some other aspects of their criteria.

Would not blame you if you were sceptical of the services of brokers bearing in mind the right to buy experience you had, but would add that many of the right to buy brokers that were out there have either moved on or cleaned up their act (we hope).

I have known people that were cold called (no longer allowed), charged a massive fee (£2000 to £3000), placed with a lender that may not have been the best for them (purely based on commission rates) and told certain half truths about the right to buy market (for example, a government study into restricting right to buy was turned into 'right to buy will be withdrawn').

Failing that, post your details/requirements here closer to the time and someone will be able to help. Not much point in doing it know as your circumstances and lenders' deals and lending policies can change a lot in 2 months let alone 2 years.

However, if you want to post now,you will need to let us know income, loan required, property value, current lender, deal, previous credit history etc; I am sure you will receive a few pointers.

Hope this helps

stanmoresaver

heatherd wrote:

We bought a house from our local council two years ago for a reasonable price but because our house is an airey building (prefabricated with steel inside and concrete outside) we had problems getting a mortgage and ended up buying the house with a 12% mortgage which crippled us. We wanted to buy this because we had lived in the house for a few years and were settled there and went ahead with the mortgage as the broker told us the right to buy was going to stop which we later found to be untrue.

We have now re-mortgaged but this cost a lot of money in redemption fees etcetra. We would like to remortgage again in a couple of years when we are no longer tied in to our current mortgage deal and wonder how to find out which companies will lend on these properties.

Our credit rating wasn't wonderful at the time so this may also have had an impact.

Any ideas?

A decent local estate agent would also have a good idea of which lenders would accomodate the property. As a broker, that would be my first port of call.

Get yourself recommended to a local face to face whole of market broker for when you want to do something. IMHO, the quality of the broker and the time he will spend working with you is more important than "fee-free", normally, but not always, a (moderate) fee charging broker can afford to spend more time with you.

HelpWhereIcan

stanmoresaver wrote:

IMHO, the quality of the broker and the time he will spend working with you is more important than "fee-free", normally, but not always, a (moderate) fee charging broker can afford to spend more time with you.

Agreed, would not want my previous post to be interpreted as a criticism of fee charging, only the fact that some right to buy companies charged a fee that, at £3000 in some cases, can be hard to justify. As stanmoresaver says, a broker of decent quality may have to charge a fee, but will be able to justify the fee they have charged by the result they obtain for you.

Suppose I was trying too hard to follow the ethos of this site and will gladly agree that many brokers who charge a (reasonable) fee are worth every penny.

wolds_lady

We too purchased our Levitt-Cartwright steel framed council home, a few years ago.

The only criteria, was that we had a steel engineers report, at the property survey. This we did £350+vat), a good report and the Halifax allowed us a 100% mortgage.

These types of homes were generally built in the late 40's and were given a life of around 20yrs - a quick fix to the shortage of local authority homes, after the war.

These types of property require a steel liner for the chimney and usually some minor rectification work to the gable end of the house. Your local authority will advise you here (in fact i think the government surveyed all these properties and produced a help-sheet, for house owners and authorities..

We later sold our home and the purchasers relied on another Halifax mortgage, thus no issues for selling this type of property...

We had problems getting building insurance from the major players but yet again Halifax obliged...

Good luck

WL

ps.. I do not work nor am I associated with the Halifax

ctabuk

Hi, it is something that we have specialised in since 1987

The Airey has to be re-instated to a system previously known as PRC Homes Limited (NHBC Owned) repair solution.

If you search us using CTAB Mortgages you will find us. And we are not the bad guys as our site will testify. Hope we can help. Best wishes David