will nobody help us?

sammyjammy

I think you came to this thread with preconseptions of what people would say, if you read back over it nobody is slagging off the scheme, people are just commenting on the affordability of what you are trying to do.

Just looking at borrowing £80k is 4 times your income and thats if you can find someone that will include the tax credits (most don't), that in itself is fairly hefty in these difficult times but without any further lending its not impossible.

I think you need to go over things again, it doesn't matter what we say at the end of the day its what the lenders say that matters.

Is it guaranteed that you can go back to your job after your child goes to school? If not you may find the workplace a very different place with major competition for every job. I have in the past worked for Jobcentreplus when we had the last recession in the early 90s, 500+ were applying for the most basic of jobs.

best of luck.

SAm

benjo

Regarding the scheme itself, I know nothing about it - so I have no opinion on it one way or another, I do understand your desire to own your own place rather than paying a high rent, so you have my empathy there.

Ok, to the money part if you borrow 80k fixed at 5% (I suspect that with no deposit you may have to pay 6% or more) for 5 years your monthly repayments will be £473 per month meaning a saving of £177 per month and that is a good saving......

However, you wont actually be saving £177 per month at all by the time you factor in the following that you probably wont be paying for at the moment.

Buildings insurance
Service contracts on your central heating/plumbing etc (or a savings pot to cover emergencies)
A savings scheme/savings pot for emergency repairs to the house.
A savings pot to cover 13 weeks mortgage payments incase (god forbid) your husband is made redundant or has an accident and looses his job.
Mortgage protection payment plan.
Critical Illness cover.
Life insurance to cover the sum borrowed - for both of you (god forbid), if anything happens to you then your husband might need to give up his job to look after the little un's.

On top of the above regular outgoings you need to factor in these payments.

Deposit - well you dont have one yet.
Legal fee's, possibly £700+
Mortage product fee - possibly as high as £1500
Removal fees possibly £300+

I dont mean to put a downer on your dreams, but lenders are fully aware of the real cost of owning a home and if they cant see any slack in your finances they wont be willing to lend to you in this climate.

I see you mention that in 4 years time you will be able to return to work full time, perhaps a good plan would be to visit the debt free boards now, see if/how you can reduce your spending, start saving towards your deposit/legal fees etc then in 4 years time you might be in a stronger position to get the house of your dreams.

Best of luck.

pmcg01

I do feel lenders are right to be cautious and they are being cautious - I therefore believe it will be difficult to find a lender who will.

If you do, you mention fixed rates, and I feel that is probably best, as interest rates can hardly get any lower and probably will not, but as someone said, what if they do go up to 10% - you will be in sever bother when the fixed period ends, it has happened before, when millions struggled after coming off fixed rate deals.

As for payment protection, it is recommended, but I do not think lenders will take it into aco!!!! with overall affordability. There is usually a self sufficiency period, where you need to be sick or redundnat for a period before it kicks in. It also probably will only pay a maxium of 75% of income, and for a set period, say 12 months, and ultimately they may find a reason not to pay out at all.

Owning property is good, but it is not necessary. Someon mentioned Germany - there more people rent than buy, and it can be a good thing - it shields you from interest rate changes as you will agree the rent at a set rate usually - and you are not responsible for repairs.

poppy10_2

weesie81 wrote: »

you are correct i have no saved deposit,however the scheme are offering to put down a 20-40% one as i stated in original post.

With the LIFT scheme, the government is a co-owner in the property. The 20-40% deposit is for their share, not yours. You still need to save up 10% of your share - for the £80,000 mortgage that will be £8,000. If you can't afford to save this up, then you can't afford to buy a property. The debt-free wannabe board might be useful for identifying areas where you could cut down your spending or increase your income. For example, you seem to be suggesting that you will go back to work only once your child has reached school age. That's fine, it's a personal choice, but you have to accept that as a result your joint income will be too low to support you buying a property.

Amanita_2

weesie81 wrote: »

in 4 years time our situation willl be very different as our youngest will be at school allowing me to return to work where my salary is actually higher than my husbands.

In that case why don't you go back to work now and let your husband look after the children?

weesie81

think i will leave this alone for now, to the people who read and left some advice or things for us to think about thanks and i appreciate it.
i did have worries about posting you are right only because as i have read these boards before and its always the same names being negative or abrupt with cutting posts about similar schemes.
like i say i never had any intention of coming here for a debate and some of the posts have been very helpful thanks.

Mrs_Bumble

I really don't understand why you feel people have been down on you at all. Again and again it has come back to what is going to be affordable, now because people are not saying oh yes you go and do it doesn't mean that they are not meaning well, they are trying to help but it would seem it just isn't the help that you want.

I worked in collections for 2 years, repossessing houses, and most of the cases in there weren't people who intended to miss mortgage payments they were people that took on too much and then circumstances changed.

iscrimger

poppy10 wrote: »

With the LIFT scheme, the government is a co-owner in the property. The 20-40% deposit is for their share, not yours. You still need to save up 10% of your share - for the £80,000 mortgage that will be £8,000. If you can't afford to save this up, then you can't afford to buy a property. The debt-free wannabe board might be useful for identifying areas where you could cut down your spending or increase your income. For example, you seem to be suggesting that you will go back to work only once your child has reached school age. That's fine, it's a personal choice, but you have to accept that as a result your joint income will be too low to support you buying a property.

That is incorrect.

You do not need a deposit to obtain a mortgage for the scheme - the government's share is taken into account as the deposit by lenders. (Part of this reason is to allow you to get a lower interest rate on mortgages). This is why the scheme was setup. It was also setup by the SNP government so the ethos behind the scheme varies from the Labour supported schemes.

How you repay the governments share is also different from other schemes. On most scheme's you're 'loan' from the government will incur interest and you will eventually be required to make payments to repay this amount. The LIFT scheme however is completely different, it incurs no interest and nor do you have to make regular payments.

After 2 years you are offered an increased stake, then 2 years again etc until you own 100%. If in X years time you decide to sell your home the government will get its share back. If the government initially took a 40% stake in your home - when you sell that home you will repay the government 40%. Regardless if your home has lost value or gained value you will pay 40% of the sale price back to the government. (You repay whatever share you don't own)

The social landlord, Link Homes, carry out a full affordibility check of your income & savings as to what you can afford for the scheme.

weesie81

ok final post here, for the record i am not upset that people are not saying what i want to hear.
if anything the useful comments have given me an insight as to why i am having the difficulty obtaining the 3 quotes i need from lenders for the LIFT scheme.

i just think some of the comments above were not needed and also some with wrong information.

"In that case why don't you go back to work now and let your husband look after the children?" quite franky that is none of your business and has no relevence to the lift scheme!
"With no deposit you've got no chance, and rightly so." again what was the need for that?
and i do have the chance with no deposit or i would not be trying my best to obtain quotes. the lift scheme as stated above does not require one.

again thanks for all the other replies like i say we have taken all the points on board.
last thing we want is to get on the scheme,find a family home and then lose it we are not taking this lightly.

benjo

"In that case why don't you go back to work now and let your husband look after the children?" quite franky that is none of your business and has no relevence to the lift scheme!

You are absolutely right - none of this is anyones business unless you bring it to a public forum and ask for peoples opinions like....

how can we get approved for scheme if we cannot even obtain 3 lenders quotes?

You have said that lenders wont lend you enough since your income is too low at the moment....

You have said that your earnings are potentially higher than your husbands....

It isnt, therefore, unreasonable to suggest that you might have more luck in getting the three quotes you need, based on affordability criteria if you, the higher earner, was working rather than your husband, the lower earner....

While I accept that it isnt anyones business 'why' you dont choose that route, Amanita gave a potentially reasonable solution to your original question - why cant we get three quotes - simple answer - you dont earn enough, increase your income, decrease your outgoings.

Nobody here is anti your home owning dreams they just dont have opinions compatible with your expectations.

I wish you luck.