Mortgage Offer delayed

Junglegirl

Hi,
Please help calm my nerves or put me out of my misery. We have sold our house - 7 weeks ago - we have made an offer and are in the process of buying a house. All is well on that front.
Our house was surveyed 7 weeks ago, the solicitors on both sides are at the ready to sign papers stage - when we were told that our buyers does not have a mortgage offer in writing.
They have a mortgage offer in principal, but this is subject to obtaining information in connection with our buyers tax credits. We only learnt of this problem 10 days ago. Since then I have hounded our estate agent as I have no contact with our buyer. I have had numerous excuses, from that B/Soc is very slow to the buyer hasn't requested the right information.
So I am just wondering if it is normal for HMRC (tax credits) to take so long to deal with things, they are now saying 7 days before you get a response, we are ready to exchange and complete - 7 days mucks everything up. Is it usual for the buyer of our property not to be informed that the B/Soc want a letter from HMRC stating their income for next year at such a late stage in the proceedings, is this the fault of the buyer or their advisers? I have even been told that HMRC advised our buyers not to call again about the income for next year as this would put their request back to the bottom of the pile and would cause more delays - is this correct?
I am so fed up of chasing our buyers mortgage that our estate agents are now evasive when I call. What can I do now anything or nothing? I don't want the sale to fall through but we really can't do with a serious delay so late in the proceedings we need to complete within the next 10 - 12 days.
many thanks for your help/advise

G_M

Just to cover yourself put the property back on the market.

If the buyer's mortgage comes through, all well and good. If not, you've made a start on finding a new buyer.

hazyjo

Just wondering why you need to complete within 10-12 days? Can't you just ride it out and let it take as long as it takes? Obviously make sure everyone's doing something and getting on with it rather than shoving the folder to the side of their desk. Sometimes things crop up that cause delays.

We thought we'd be in our house by last Christmas - two or three months after our offer was accepted. Turned out there was a problem with the garages not being assigned to the house and that delayed things by another two or three months. We didn't move in until 31 March!

The average sale takes around 3 months so it doesn't sound like yours has been dragging on forever.

Jx

jonny_power

Someone said that you should only put timelines on when you absolutely have to stick to them. If you do have to, then putting it back on the market should give them the rocket they need, because it does sound a little slow.

Junglegirl

Hi,
Thank you everyone for your comments.

The need to complete within the next 10 days or so days is due to time constricting factors, Ours is a very small chain (only 4 including my buyer), 3 out of the 4 need to complete and move before the school holidays finish. 2 of the 4 are going on holiday (myself included) and we'd like to be moved before we go - first week in September, the other person with a holiday is the second week in September. 1 of the 4 has a partner who is going away to work in 3 weeks time and won't be back for 6 months - everyone was aware of the pressures.

I'd love to hang on, but as we are 7 weeks in to the sale process I would have thought my buyer would have been instructed by both his broker and/or solicitor that this letter form HMRC regarding his tax credit was very important and should be one of things that was in his hands and given to the B/Soc as soon as possible. Surely my buyer can't be the only person in the world with a mortgage reliant on tax credits - surely their advisor has dealt with this type of thing before.

I suppose I am flabbergasted and frustrated at such lax organisation and I suppose being told that you had a first time buyer who wanted a very quick sale - doesn't help matters.

Jx

hazyjo

We were told our buyer wanted to exchange within 3 weeks (he was an investor)! We bent over backwards to get it all done in that time, but it still took 5 months! Thank God, he hung on. We'd already had a sale fall through. Our chain only comprised three parties!

FTBs I find are the worst for getting things done as some really don't have a clue how long things actually take. They also seem more worried about spending money on things like mortgage deals before getting the survey done and instructing solicitors. Trouble is, it's usually because of their caution that the sale collapses anyway! The quicker they can just get on with it all in the beginning, the better the chances of completing! (IMO anyway!)

Contracts can all be signed and it can all exchange/complete when anyone's away. I've known people complete just after their wedding when they were on honeymoon. Her parents ended up moving all their stuff for them - hell! There's usually some sort of plan that can be worked out. Never ideal, but invariably a solution will be found.

Good luck! House buying is an absolute nightmare. The whole system needs a bloody good shake-up.

Jx

iheartbristol

We got our Mortgage in principle before we made an offer and the minute it was accepted we sent all the information to our lender in order to fully apply for the mortgage. Also they wanted until they were happy to lend us the money before then checking that they were happy to lend on that property (getting the survey done). Only after they had checked the valuation report did they send out the mortgage offer. All fairly standard as far as I'm aware.

Have your buyers had their survey/had the house valued? That would have been a big red warning sign for me if not.

dazeruk

Junglegirl wrote: »

2 of the 4 are going on holiday (myself included) and we'd like to be moved before we go - first week in September, the other person with a holiday is the second week in September.

I suppose I am flabbergasted and frustrated at such lax organisation

I find it amazing that people actually organise a holidy in the middle of the moving process.

kingstreet

There are one or two oddities concerning tax credits. Halifax, for example, will take them into account but you have to produce EVERY page of the award letter. Now that might sound fairly innocuous, but here's a simple point.

You open the letter and it contains eight pages. Page eight is blank, other than the "page 8 of 8" printed on the bottom. Guess you can see where this is headed? That's right. Despite it having nothing printed on it, Halifax want every page which has a page number.

So you send them the first seven pages, wait for a fortnight for it to be processed then you get another letter asking for the same thing. After two days messing around, you discover why it's being requested again. You then have to go to HMRC because you threw away page 8 of 8 because there was nothing on it...

That's a month to turn around and sort out a very innocuous issue. I'll tell you one thing. You never make that mistake twice... :mad:

KEA

My buyer is also having issues sorting out their mortgage and one of the issues is something to do with tax credits. I don't really understand how you can use what is really a government benefit as part of your income for gaining a mortgage? If the government change the brackets etc again then the income will drop from tax credits, it all seems a bit dodgy to me?

JingleJangle

I sympathise. I am in a chain with something similar happening. In my case my buyers lost their ('dead set and all ready to exchange') buyers, but didn't really tell us (we were just told they were being slow about three weeks into the process), and have gone down the bridging finance route, which is taking forever. They are telling me every day it will come through the next day, every day it doesn't. We have to complete by the 19th as the people we are buying from are saying they cannot move on any other date apart from that until November, so I feel stuck between a rock and hard place. No advice, but simply to sit tight. We are also supposed to be on holiday, but have sacrificed it, despite having paid for it a year ago.