First time buyer council right to buy

IWishICouldFly

My wife and I are considering buying our council house via the right to buy scheme. We've lived in the house for 10 years and so are entitled to the maximum discount (in our case around £34.5k). At the moment it's all a little vague as to whether we actually want to purchase the property and we've never had a mortgage before so this is a completely new area for us so apologies if my questions are a little simplistic!

As far as I can see
Council give us a valuation and discount figure
We give our council notice that we want to buy
We arrange the mortgage
Sign the paperwork

So a few questions
With a 34k discount on the purchase price would most lenders like to see a cash deposit
Are things like surveys stipulated by the mortgage company
Are there any other obvious things we need to think about

We are going to be speaking to a local mortgage advisor but I'd rather appear simple to a bunch of anonymous people on the internet

Thanks

PlutoinCapricorn

Do you know whether your council offers a mortgage to right-to-buyers?Some councils definitely did, and some did not require a deposit

If so, a full survey may not be necessary as it will have been done.

Do you understand what you may be letting yourself in for where service charges for major works are involved?

IWishICouldFly

Hmmm, not thought about the council as a mortgage provider, I'll check with them later today, we don't currently have a deposit but aren't planning on buying until early next year so we'd be able to get a reasonable one together by then.

Service charges and buildings insurance and so on are on our list of things to check, thanks. to be honest those kind of additional costs have always been the reason we've never bought in the past. Time to grow up now though I think

seven-day-weekend

One major thing to think about is how you could pay the mortgage if the main income disappeared as there is nowhere near as much help for mortgages as there is for rent.

Many insurance companies offer insurance that will cover this for a while.

Also, don't forget you will have to maintain and repair the property.

IWishICouldFly

Thanks, I'll add insurances to the (ever growing) list of things to look in to

Missy79

I also bought my house through Right to Buy and it was pretty much as simple as you stated although obviously it may not alsways be the case.
I suspect you will still need a cash deposit as (at least in our case) the discount amount is recoverable by the council on a sliding scale if the property is sold within a certain time (e.g. if it is sold after 5 years no money has to be paid back, less than 5 years a certain perentage must be paid back.)
Some mortgage providers don't provide for right to buy, we got ours through the Coventry Building Society and had no trouble. We didn't have to get a survey beyond the mortage valuation survey so we didn't as we had lived in the house for a while but I wouldn't be comfortable recommending this to anyone else.
Beyond that it is not much different than buying any other property, you'll need insurance and obviously will have the responsibility of paying the mortgage with less financial help if this becomes a problem

IWishICouldFly

Thanks for all the helpful posts, next step: find a mortgage advisor I think