extending mortgage offer

silvercar

Applied and received a mortgage offer in December.

The mortgage was arranged with our existing mortgage company as we have redemption penalties on our current mortgage but the mortgage is portable so this is the only way of moving home without incuring penalties of about £5k.

(Anyway we are happy with the company so its not a great problem.)

We are still waiting to exchange contracts due to the person two steps up the chain sorting out personal legal !!!!!! before she will exchange. This is an ongoing saga that we are told will be sorted in two weeks (I have heard this every two weeks since January. Whatever, at some point it will be sorted, hopefully the chain will still hold together and we can move).

The mortgage offer is valid for 6 months from the initial application (20 Dec '05). So it runs out in theory on 20 June. This means I understand, we need to complete by that date. There is no way I am prepared to complete then as my son will be in the middle of his GCSEs as will my sellers and this person at the top of the chain. Everyone in the chain has agreed that completion will be 28 days after exchange because we all have family homes and/or finances to sort out before completion. If we don't exchange in the next couple of weeks (possible but will probably not happen again!) what happens to my mortgage offer?

Can a mortgage offer be extended? Will I have to re-apply. I checked on their website and the rate for the deal I want has increased by 0.1% and the arrangement fee has increased by £100. So I guess the offer I had is no longer available. I had to pay a £200 application fee when I applied - has that been wasted now?

LeanneF

Silvercar,

You'll need to contact your mortgage provider/arranger directly to be sure, but I can tell you my experience (with Nationwide) which is encouraging since our offer was extended.

We got our offer on 3rd August 2005 for property X and completed on property Y on 22nd February 2006 (exchanged on Feb 9th). So both exchange & completion were just outside the offer period of 6 months. The offer for the original property was portable to the 2nd with no extra fee. Our advisor told us that the 6 months limit is given because clearly mortgage offers can't be open-ended & that there was some leeway in the timescale provided things were close to being tied up.

Leanne