Putting an offer in on a house before mortgage agreed?

jmb1

Is this possible? Inadvisable? Not allowed?

We have a few days before we can meet again with our ifa to sort a mortgage application but have seen a house we like; keen to know if we can, to show our genuine interest we were thinking of putting an offer in and if its accepted we'll sort the mortgage (hopefully, of course will be accepted too). If however an offer is accepted but we cant get the mortgage do we run any risks or penalties as we'll have to pull out?

GAH

You have already had a meeting with a FA so you know how much you can spend upto, and you have an Agreement in Principle??

If so, then get yourself out viewing, find a property, make your offers. Once you then find somewhere and offer been accpeted you then want to sit back down with Your FA. There maybe new products or cheaper deals come to the market, you Advisor can then put your mortgage application in.

jmb1

no thats the thing, no agreement in principle we just had an initial chat in last meeting so no certainty (especially in these times) we'll have a mortgage accepted, in principle or otherwise.

as you are mentioning agreement in principle - is this something a mortgage lender will only offer after a credit worthiness check? is it as good as saying theyll lend a mortgage to the required amount?

sorry for newb questions

Yorkie1

An agreement in principle is a preliminary indication of what the lender would lend to you, based on the information it has at that time. It does usually involve a credit check. You won't get anything more concrete until you've had an offer accepted on a house and put the full application for the mortgage in. The full application can fail at that stage for a number of reasons, either to do with the property /valuation, or sometimes on closer scrutiny by the lender of your details/ finances.

There is nothing to stop you viewing and offering on a property without an AIP - it is not legally or otherwise required (whatever the EA may say). But if you're not happy to do that, what you could do is view the property and if you're interested in it, tell the EA that you will be making an offer once the AIP has been processed by your IFA.