Estate agent saying we have to use their mortgage deals

JQ.

Drop your offer by 10% and tell them you'll complete in 28 days and then work your nuts off to get a mortgage sorted from an Independant Financial Adviser in that timeframe.

Seriously, I agree with everything above, EA is trying to pull a fast one. Do not use their mortgage broker - they do not have YOUR best interest at heart.

bitsandpieces

You don't have to go with the EA mortgage advisor. I'm pretty sure they're breaching the rules by pushing you like this. However, if you want to exchange quickly you'll need to get a mortgage where this will be possible.

The 28-day thing is the vendors' issue. They will (or should!) be getting the repo at a lower price because of the tight timescale, along with other issues. If they want you to pay usual market rate for their place while rushing to meet they're deadline for a repo (and ending up out of pocket as a result) that seems unreasonable. If they are set on this timetable, you could ask them what discount they'll agree for you to meet it - otherwise, there will be other houses.

evening_all

I can tell you now from experience, we've just had an HSBC mortgage approved today and it took less than 10 days which includes bank holiday and weekends.

We're first time buyers aswell.

DVardysShadow

Ulfar wrote: »

No you don't have to use their mortgage broker. If they try and insist ask them to confirm this in writing, they won't. Trading standards would be very happy to see you if you did have a letter to this effect.

Key message here. The other thing to get in writing would be that all commissions are credited to buyer ...

PasseySam

Hi,

Sorry don't have any experience of buying a repossessed property but we recently got our mortgage from HSBC and they were really quick at getting it all approved and things too, nowhere near 12 weeks! I think it took a few days to be approved then the survey was booked and done a few days later, then mortgage offer arrived a couple of days after that. So all in all about 10 days, 2 weeks tops if you include weekends etc.

Maybe it depends on your circumstances but I reckon go with the mortgage that you want and don't feel pressured into taking the EA mortgage deal as they probably want the commission and I don't think they're allowed to force you to accept their financial and legal services at any rate. Perhaps make it clear to HSBC that you need a quick turnaround also, they were pretty good for our mortgage arrangements.

Good luck

dubsey

I work in estate agency and no you don't have to use their in-house person at all.

With regard to the sellers buying the repo, with a mortgage exchange is normally 28 days, the longest I have running at the moment is 11 months, with no end in sight (very unusual circumstances though). The repo company will insist it stays on the market and if someone comes in with a higher offer they will go back to your vendor to ask if they want to increase their offer - their choice. If they do increase, they obviously run the risk of it happening again, but such is the way repos work.

Worst case, you get to 28 days and no sight of an exchange, most repo companys will give a 7 day extension. If still no exchange they will pull contracts, BUT, this doesn't mean it's game over, everything just carries on and when the chain are ready to exchange, the solicitor requests the contracts back and is ready to go.

Once you get very close to exchange (within a couple of days) the repo company are less inclined to accept another offer anyway, unless it's a lot higher.

dan536

Again,

Thanks to everyone on this. Great news to hear about another HSBC mortgage taking so short a time. We both bank with them anyway and hold no other accounts elsewhere so as far as income/outgoing proof it's easy. We also have a definite 10% deposit plus no other debts bar a small amount on a credit card (0%).

My mother-in-law also worked for HSBC mortgages before retiring and a) cannot believe the voicemails we played for her from the agent and b)thinks we should play them to the HSBC as it may spur them on a bit anyway .

Good to hear from an estate agent too with regards to the repo situation. We honestly think that assuming HSBC can sort the mortgage as quickly as possible we should have no problems. Our solicitor had contacted them 30 mins after we instructed her with all her detail too and even told us things need to move quickly. It seems (fingers crossed) that everything should go well (famous last words).

Anyway - we are yet to actually have a real conversation with him, so we'll see what happens. Irrespective - there appears to be no other option for them anyway. Even if we pulled out, there's noone waiting in the wings to buy the house for cash, in what is now, less than 28 days. Surely we're currently their best bet?

(We're also still waiting for a confirmation of offer acceptance by letter - if anything, it seems they're holding things up if we went by the book.)

dan536

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Key message here. The other thing to get in writing would be that all commissions are credited to buyer ...

Can you tell me what you mean by this? I don't really understand. Thanks. Dan.

p.s. forgot to say above - our solicitor was ready to pounce when we told her about the voicemail message we'd had - basically saying HSBC were dreadful and would take so long and we really should use there sols and mortgage. He also said on a seperate message that the reason our offer was accepted over others is that we were happy to use both of them (this is not only absolute rubbish, it is also suggesting they bias offers which is wholly against their rules). Anyway, we've held off on lodging a complaint until we speak to him next, just to see where he goes next - the record call option on my phone might come in quite useful I think.

DVardysShadow

I mean that you get the agent's commission on the mortgage. It is a bit tongue in cheek, but if the reason that you have to use the agent's mortgage broker is to 'save' the deal, then they should not be getting the commission.

dan536

Ha - I thought that's what you were getting at. In fairness, it's not really a bad request. If it's 'the only way' he can see the deal going through, I'm sure he won't miss a couple of quid.

Anyway - going to speak to the solicitor this morning, then I assume we'll get a call from the agent at some point.

I think I'll suggest that if he has any problems in the future that he speak to our solicitor from now on, after all, I guess that's what we're paying for.