Help! Confused first time buyers

lmac22

Hi everyone!

To make this brief, we put offer in for house, was accepted, had mortgage valuation and received mortgage offer, had survey done which showed some things wrong so in the last few days we have negotiated with the seller to lower the asking price by £1000.

Question is what happens now?? We have been told the sellers EA writes to our solicitor explaining the change and then our solicitor informs our mortgage lender, is this right?

Plus tomorrow we are going to the solicitors to 'sign' as all the searchs are complete. Does this mean sign the contract (sorry, I'm clueless i know). After that what will happen? What does it mean by exchange and complete?

Sorry I sound so dense, but we are FTB with no experience of how this all works.

Any friendly advicec or info would be gratefully received!!

hethmar

When you sign the contract, double check they have changed the agreed price! The contracts will be exchanged - yours sent to the sellers' solicitor and vice versa. The solicitor will tell you all this when you go - but you will have a period where you could still back out but at a loss of deposit until completion Completion is the actual day the money changes hands - the day you move.

Dont worry about anything at the moment, enjoy - you are paying the solicitor to sort it for you so make sure you make a list of all your questions. In the meantime, have a google for a good site that will explain the ins and outs.

Good luck.

AndrewSmith

You will need to contact your mortgage lender immediately and inform them of the change to the asking price. Then tell your solicitor that you have done this.

They will need to issue a new revised mortgage offer to reflect the changes.

Do not wait for a solicitor to do it as they will request it by way of a letter to the lender which will hold up proceedings.

Contracts cannot be exchanged until the mortgage offer is amended and the solicitor has the correct version.

lmac22

Thanks for the replies.

But another question then, why is our solicitor bringing us in tomorrow to 'sign' if she has to wait for a new mortgage offer to be issued by the lender?

Is it that we will sign tomorrow but our solicitor won't actually exchange contracts until she has all the relevant paperwork regarding the new offer? But surely that doesn't make sense?

She is aware of the drop in the price we are paying so does she just not know what she is doing?!!!

no1gymbunny

As long as the correct asking price is on the contract it should be fine to sign it. A lot of people get confused here - 'signing the contract' does not mean 'exchange of contracts'. The solicitor will hold the signed contact on file awaiting the amended mortgage offer. Make sure your solicitor is holding the deposit money. Do not use a cheque unless there is time for it to clear before completion. Good luck.