Carpets and mortgage offer...

nmr1h

Hi,

an odd situation has arisen with a house purchase that I am involved with.

My partner is purchasing a new build house for £206k, the developer had sold the house before but the sale fell through.

As a result the property has already had carpets fitted.

The mortgage was arranged through Halifax and they carried out the valuation, which came back as being in the range of £195-£210k, so the price agreed with the builder is in the range.

She received a mortgage offer for the £206k which was signed and sent back to the solicitor.

Now however Halifax are querying the carpets and are implying that they are some sort of benefit that could have an impact on the value of the property/mortgage.

Other identical houses in the development are going for £206k with no carpets, if things do go wrong and they ever had to repossess the house the fact that the house has carpets will only add to the value of the house, not detract....

I am at a loss to try and understand what the heck they are getting their knickers in a twist about....

Any ideas?

harvey115

As far as I know most of the properties on the development site is usually valued by one valuation officer as the Lenders usually have similar contacts in the industry. This means the valuation report must have added the details on the carpets.

As for the down valuing the property, I think it should only effect the final amount the bank is willing to pay in terms of the mortgage. If the bank under values the property they may offer a little less then the original amount depending on the LTV deal you have. So you may have to add a couple of thousands extra in your deposit amount.

I do not think you will have to worry about anything else other then this, fingers crossed.

nmr1h

thanks for the comment.

The odd thing is that the carpets were in situ when they did the valuation, they made the mortgage offer based on that valuation visit

They are now querying it when the exchange of contracts should be happening....

According to the You Gov website a firm offer of a mortgage commits them to providing the mortgage. They can only pull out in extreme circumstances, and I would have thought that them querying carpets doesn't constitute extreme circumstances..... Usual extreme circumstances are quoted as the applicant misstating income etc.

Problem is my partner will not be able to cough up the £4k they are saying the carpets are worth... Hopefully they come to their senses...

mic200202

If its a brand new house then the builder will complete a CML form which is a disclosure of incentives form.So any extras that form part of the purchase price (or not as may be the case) are on there.

I'm not sure why the lender is querying this now.But not unusual with Halifax and their tiresome process's when it comes to release of funds checks.

Many new houses are now provided as 'turnkey' which include lots of extras.As long as the valuer is happy with the basic house price then there shouldn't be an issue.

I suspect the completions team have seen something that should have been ticked off earlier in the process.

harvey115

My Mortgage adviser was also suggesting that I can go with Halifax if time is important. She said Halifax has a quick turn around (within 10 working days).

I went with Clydesdale because I was after Offset deal.

However I think this is more to do with 'luck' I guess...

Froggitt

100% mortgages are back?

nmr1h

Thanks for the comments!

It looks as if the situation may have been resolved, we had a mail late yesterday from the solicitor saying that she had spoken to Halifax and that they were going to be sending out a "revised" mortgage offer for the full purchase price today.

Fingers crossed there are no caveats....