Builders and bank cant agree

reggie01642

From the sounds of this deal it was always doomed to fall down on completion.

Exactly ... I'm no expert.. but that can't be right can it .. £1500 is peanuts to these guys but not to us ! If it was never going to work then why offer us the mortgage in the first place ?

Good idea about getting them to lower the price .. I may try that .. however we got a fair bit off initially which I think P£ssed them off! Doubt they will go lower for now but maybe in 6 months..

GMS

reggie01642 wrote: »

From the sounds of this deal it was always doomed to fall down on completion.

Exactly ... I'm no expert.. but that can't be right can it .. £1500 is peanuts to these guys but not to us ! If it was never going to work then why offer us the mortgage in the first place ?

Good idea about getting them to lower the price .. I may try that .. however we got a fair bit off initially which I think P£ssed them off! Doubt they will go lower for now but maybe in 6 months..

Even if they lower the purchase price you may still find an issue with it being a new build. LTV may be restricted.

The builder will realise that this problem will happen again to somebody in the same position as you and may choose to come to an agreement with you on price.

You are right about the £1500 out of pocket to you. Did you tell Halifax EXACTLY what was going on from the start? If so it may be worth a phone call to ask for a refund of costs as a gesture of goodwill.

Keep in mind a mortgage offer is issued with many clauses for the solicitors to fulfil on completion so Halifax may not have been incorrect in allowing the case to progress. Their underwriters and computer systems are not legally minded.

I hope you can get some sort of resolution with Halifax, whether it be a refund or allowing your mortgage to proceed in a slightly different way.

Good luck

reggie01642

Yeah maybe that needs to change.. maybe it should be the case that if the banks agree to lend money then they cant go back on this without being liable to refunding any costs incurred as a result of pulling the plug further down the line.. but I guess that would be too fair a system .. thanks for the advice folks.. suspect I dont have leg to stand on and need to put this down to experience

opinions4u

reggie01642 wrote: »

Yeah maybe that needs to change.. maybe it should be the case that if the banks agree to lend money then they cant go back on this without being liable to refunding any costs incurred as a result of pulling the plug further down the line.. but I guess that would be too fair a system .. thanks for the advice folks.. suspect I dont have leg to stand on and need to put this down to experience

You never did answer question 3 in post #5.

Did you actually have a formal mortgage offer at any point?

(and to be honest, the builder's clause restricting repossession is the problem here ... so why blame the lender?)

reggie01642

Yes we had/have a formal written offer.. But funds wont be realeased unless the clause is removed..

I dont blame the lender at this stage.. what they are saying is reasonable ...

However, they have always known about the nature of the deal and I would have rather they would have just rejected the deal in the first place after investigating the detail.. that would have been fine we would have taken our custom elsewhere.. The fact that they have thrown a spanner in the works at the last minute in my perhaps naive opinion is unfair on us and in general I think once banks agree to offer you the money they should go through with the offer..

Thrugelmir

reggie01642 wrote: »

However, they have always known about the nature of the deal and I would have rather they would have just rejected the deal in the first place after investigating the detail..

Your solicitor would have reported the insertion of this clause to the lender on receiving the sale contract. As your solicitor represents both you and the lender during the purchase process.

Suggest you sit tight. The builder won't wish a confirmed sale to fall through. Can you raise a higher deposit to increase your initial equity?