Re mortgaging with house on the market?

chilipepper38

Hi, our house has been on the market for 18 months with little interest. I have recently applied for another fixed rate mortgage with a different lender. I was told that they could not offer me a mortgage whilst my house was for sale and I had to take it off the market. I initially agreed but planned to put it back on if I got my mortgage offer. However when I checked exit fees with the estate agent it was £350 + VAT! I can't afford this so my house is still for sale.
Is this standard practice from lenders?? What annoyed me was at the end of the mortgage application I was told all the legal blurb which included a statement along the lines of, 'if you sell your house in the meantime before your mortgage offer you can port it over!!' It makes no sense. I'm now worried I'll be turned down because I can't afford to take my house off the market.

roseland69

Have you dropped the sale price of your home? Perhaps its on for too much and that's why its not sold or got little interest. Everything sells... at the right price

Not sure about the estate agent "exit fees" though. Sounds a bit weird?

Our contract bound us to the same agent for X amount of weeks (terms can vary I think from 8 to 12 to more weeks). Once the period was up and once we had given written notice (a month beforehand) that we would be terminating the arrangement at the end of the 12 week period... that was it. No money had to change hands.

This time around we have a 12 week period. Again, once that time is up and we've given notice to terminate. That's it.

If you do take it off the market, re-mortgage and put it on again, you'll have to get another HIP done too given you've had it for sale for 18 months.

If I were you perhaps cut your losses, drop the price and just sell and all this will become academic.

silvercar

It is not the lender that is being difficult it is the estate agent. Why can't he understand that it needs to be temporarily removed before being remarketed, without charging you?

I do find it slightly worrying that you are signing up to moving house without beinfg able to afford an extra £350. House moving eats money in my experience.

chilipepper38

Everyone moves house for different reasons. We don't have any savings but we have to move as our daughter is severely disabled and our house is useless for her. There is no help available to help us afford a bigger more suitable house.

Our house has already been reduced by £15,000, a lot for a small terrace. If we drop it much more then we can't afford anything bigger.

We were aware that we had a fee to pay if we left our estate agent however it has gone up over the period of time we have had our house on the market.

Is it normal for banks to not offer if a house is on the market???

pawpurrs

Yes it is normal, but with SVR prob lower than any fix than you can get at the moment, surely theres no rush to remortgage? You will have to pay fees twice then once this time and then for the extra borrowing, surely it would be better to get one larger loan when you sell and come to rebuy?

silvercar

pawpurrs wrote: »

Yes it is normal, but with SVR prob lower than any fix than you can get at the moment, surely theres no rush to remortgage?

Although a mortgage can be marketed as "portable"; in the event it is still a new lending decision. So expect to pay any arangement fees, valuations, employer referencing and be credit checked again when you move. For this reason it may not be worth remortgaging now and again in a few months time.