Authorised Overdraft

claireybee

Hi,

I know I'll probably get shot down in flames for this but I'll ask anyway! How negatively do lenders view living consistently within authorised overdrafts? My partner and I have separate bank accounts, I occasionally dip into my overdraft (never more than £100) but he is usually around £1000 overdrawn. His parents are giving us a gifted deposit of £15000 and I have some savings set aside. If I clear his overdraft with some of my savings right now would this make us more attractive candidates straight away or would we be better waiting and having a few months overdraft free before applying? Thanks.

Dave_Ham

Hi - you will get told this is a huge issue, but in reality so long as his situation is not getting progressively worse and so long as he never goes over the authorised limit, this will not effect you hugely.

Goes without saying, if you can pay it off would suggest this is the way to go and certain "picky" lenders may have a slight issue with it but overall should not effect you.

Hope this helps - Assuming you are first time buyers, there is loads of good advice throughout this forum if you have a look, use the guides and search for information similar to what you are after..


Good luck

claireybee

Thanks so much for replying so quickly. I think I'll repay it now just to give us a bit of peace of mind. Unfortunately we're not first time buyers but it's been a while since either of us went through the mortgage process and I'm sure I remember it being much simpler and less strict than it is today! We've found a house we love and we're going to see a mortgage advisor tomorrow so hopefully we can get some of our other questions answered there. As a quick aside, the advisor we're seeing is attached to the estate agent who the property we've seen is with. She claims to be completely independent but is this a terrible idea? Should we look for someone completely separate to an estate agent?

gazfocus

We spoke to a few mortgage advisors associated with the estate agents who claimed to be 100% independant. One even claimed to not work for the estate agents at all...we later signed up to property alerts from that estate agents and all the property alerts came from this so called 'independant' mortgage advisors email address with a signature 'Property negotiator and mortgage advisor'.

We chose a mortgage advisor that was completely seperate to the estate agents and was also considerably cheaper (to our suprise). One estate agents mortgage advisor (reeds rains) wanted £499. The independant we went with (part of an IFA company) charged us £149 and has been absolutely brilliant.

Dave_Ham

Please put estate agent mortgage in top search bar and then come to your own conclusion.

It is like asking the greediest kid in class to look after your sweets!

Ok, bad example but these are supposed to be "independent" and therefore neutral, but they are financially advantaged to do the best for erm... themselves.

Honestly, if you take one thing on board please do not use the brokers advisors..

Another example (hopefully a better one) you bid £100k on an asking price of £120k and you have an independent broker, you can say this is the most we can go to on our mortgage big full stop.

They share information with the brokers and negotiators and this is not to your advantage.

Do some research on here and please come to your own conclusions..

All the best...

claireybee

Thank you both, that's been really helpful. I think I'll cancel our appointment tomorrow and look for a truly independent broker. Just one last question whilst I'm already picking your brain, any tips on how to find a good local (independent) broker?

Dave_Ham

claireybee wrote: »

Thank you both, that's been really helpful. I think I'll cancel our appointment tomorrow and look for a truly independent broker. Just one last question whilst I'm already picking your brain, any tips on how to find a good local (independent) broker?

Always, always try to get a recommendation from friends or family. At least you can see, touch and trust the advice you are given.

If anything you are unsure about, please do ask away on this thread..

Good luck

gazfocus

There's also nothing stopping you from chatting to a few different brokers to get a feel for them. When I initially emailed the advisor we ended up going with, it was a Sunday afternoon and I had a reply that day. That was enough to impress me but from the very first meeting we had with the advisor we felt comfortable.

Another thing to watch out for whilst I think of it...one of the estate agent 'Independant' mortgage advisors we saw (because we were interested in a house with that estate agent) tried to pressure us into having an AIP done there and then. We told her that we had a mortgage advisor and she was almost put back by the fact that we didn't want to get advice from her.

She then said something along the lines of 'let me go through an Agreement in princeiple with you just to give you an idea of some figures'. Nothing about a true fact find like our mortgage advisor did, etc. I said no because I didn't want numerous searches on my credit report until I had made a decision about the mortgage I wanted to apply for and she tried telling me an AIP won't show on my credit file. True enough, when I did an AIP through my mortgage advisor, 2 searches showed up on my credit file.

I'd never trust an estate agent mortgage advisor as long as I live.