Lenders Criteria - Help please

clefairy

Be kind this is the first time I've posted. This may be a post for the mortageg advisors on here.

My Husband and I are currently attempting to buy our first house for £245,000. We have a £30,000 deposit

We had an offer accepted, the valuation was done and came back as £245,000. So far so good we thought! The building survey highlighted some damp in the celler and the chimney in the loft, we had these chacked out and they can both be remedied cheaply.

We have now been advised by our mortgage lender (Brittania) that they will only lend 70% on this particular property due to its location which is close to a mainline Railway and a Pub.

Does anyone know of lenders that have less stringent rules about location. The property is in a residential street and is located in Surrey

Thanks in advance

GMS

Lenders will rely on valuers comments in general. If the pub and railway station are deemed to have an affect on resale value then the LTV will be lowered or mortgage refused.

Properties attached to/next to commercial premises are usually restricted as are flats above commercial premises.

You may find a florist having no affect but a kebab shop meaning unwilling to lend.

Yours has come down to the valuer by the sounds of it. The lender need to be sure they could recover their loan if you were to default which means taking into account any negative factors

clefairy

Thanks for your reply. The bit that confuses us is the valuer valued the property at £245,000. On the one hand they are saying it is worth £245,000 and on the other saying its not worth £245,000.

Do you know of any lenders that are less strict on location than Britannia? The house is a 3 bed victorian terrace and is not attached or next door to the pub.

ACG

Strange that they have said 70%...it would usually be 75%...not that it makes much difference either way.

To be honest, as GMS has said it comes down to the valuers comments and will do with each lender. Its not the lender as such its the valuer which in this instance i am guessing is countrywide.

You could ask if the seller has a mortgage and who its with but countrywide are a big company (as their name suggests) and a few lenders will use this company. You may be able to appeal the decision but im not sure id be confident they would go from 70% upto 87ish%.

They are saying the property is valued at that amount, its just based on the valuers comments theyre not prepared to lend as much as they would if those issues were not there.

GMS

The valuer will have questions to answer such as:

Is the property attached to commercial premises?
Is the property adjacent to comm.....
Is marketability affected?
Estimated resale time?
90 day value?

He may well feel the property is worth the 245k but worry about resale time and the value of a forced sale.

The lender will get wary with any answers considered to be against the norm and cover their bases accordingly.

If Britannia are sufficiently worried about the pub and railway then you may find other lenders are too. Difficult to say what an underwriter will interpret from a valuers comments.

Obviously something has been said to spook them

clefairy

My mistake it is actually 75% they will lend and yes the valuer was Countrywide, well e-surv but instructed by Countrywide.

So would it be fair to say that our chances of getting a mortgage on this property are slim to none at the LTV we need?

GMS

Impossible to say. Another valuer may have no issue with it.

How far from the station is it? How far from the pub? Is the pub a late licence one? Beer garden likely to cause disturbance etc?

Jimbo1976

If you look on Colleys web site (probably in the broker section) they have section which shows the contact number of all of their surveyors. Choose the local one for leafy Surrey and call them and describe the property. They should know it. They will know if they've done other surveys nearby and for which lenders. Its worth a try