Mortgages, solicitors ect, First time buyer

CashStrappedTeen89

Me and my partner are hopefully moving to our first home together (my partner has had a house before) but i'm a first time buyer.

We've just had our offer accepted on a property and today was meant to be finalising our mortgage (Natwest through Frank Innes) unfortunately to be told going through our Estate Agents the mortgage has been pulled.

Luckily going directly to Natwest we still qualify for the First Time buyer and were off there tomorrow.

I'm really just looking for words of wisdom from a newbie, the background so far is We offered below asking in the last area the last property to sell was for 25% more than we offered but we are not sure of the condition of this house, the one we have offered on requires a lot of work but the potential and the price we offered/accepted couldn't be sniffed at.

Is this really the right mortgage for us it seems the best by far, we've been to Burchell Edwards, Frank Innes, direct to Halifax, Lloyds, Natwest, Satander, and many others and in the end ended up with the one at Natwest for a 5 Yr fixed.

We also decided to go with the estate agents solicitors for a few reasons, 1 being the owners are using the same solicitors so hopefully this will speed things up, the second being if the property was to fall through we get 95% refunded but it is quite expensive around £1300 solicitors and around £500-£700 in other fee's e.g. Valuation report, is there anyway to get the solicitors fee's audited?, reduced?.



Any guidance would be appreciated.

Yorkie1

1. Solicitors.

That is very expensive. You are paying for a referral fee of what may be up to several £00's to the EA from the solicitor. Also, I would never want to use the same solicitors as the seller as there is a risk of conflict of interest.

I would advise that you get quotes from a few other solicitors locally; ring them up and get them to send you (email usually) a full quote. See which you get on with on the phone and compare their quotes. Come on here if you need a bit more input.

2. When you say you've been to all those lenders, have you actually made applications through them, or simply done a quick investigation? There is a risk that too many applications will damage your credit record if you've made repeated, unsuccesful applications.

3. Valuation report etc. Any lender will have a set charge for the valuation report done on the property you want to buy. You can't negotiate on it.

You will also want a survey for your own benefit - either what used to be called a home buyer's report or a full structural survey. If there's considerable potential for renovation and it's an old property, the full survey might be better for you. You either get the lender's surveyor to do a survey for you at the same time, in which case the fee is not negotiable, or you find your own independent RICS surveyor and negotiate a fee with them.

4. Whether or not this is the right mortgage for you isn't something anyone can fully advise you about on here. That sort of advice depends on things such as your income, credit record, deposit, loan to value, attitude to risk etc. People may offer opinions but you should not rely on them instead of proper advice. If you have indeed applied to lots of different lenders through the EA advisor, I might have doubts about their ability to make appropriate applications so you might want to consider going to an independent broker.

CashStrappedTeen89

Thanks Yorkie for taking the time to come back to me.
Oh i didn't know that, were just worried if we go with another solicitors it'll take longer, as we got the house at a bargain price we thought the quicker we get it through the better.

We've just investigated, we were starting the process of application through the estate agent when they were told it wasnt available, i also have a mortgage in principal from a private broken at another estate agents.

Yeah we have gone for the full home buyers report, extra £ but well worth it.

Thanks i did think that and i have looked around a lot, done lots of compares, tried 2 brokers, multiple estate agents and banks and this seems the best.

Yorkie1 wrote: »

1. Solicitors.

That is very expensive. You are paying for a referral fee of what may be up to several £00's to the EA from the solicitor. Also, I would never want to use the same solicitors as the seller as there is a risk of conflict of interest.

I would advise that you get quotes from a few other solicitors locally; ring them up and get them to send you (email usually) a full quote. See which you get on with on the phone and compare their quotes. Come on here if you need a bit more input.

2. When you say you've been to all those lenders, have you actually made applications through them, or simply done a quick investigation? There is a risk that too many applications will damage your credit record if you've made repeated, unsuccesful applications.

3. Valuation report etc. Any lender will have a set charge for the valuation report done on the property you want to buy. You can't negotiate on it.

You will also want a survey for your own benefit - either what used to be called a home buyer's report or a full structural survey. If there's considerable potential for renovation and it's an old property, the full survey might be better for you. You either get the lender's surveyor to do a survey for you at the same time, in which case the fee is not negotiable, or you find your own independent RICS surveyor and negotiate a fee with them.

4. Whether or not this is the right mortgage for you isn't something anyone can fully advise you about on here. That sort of advice depends on things such as your income, credit record, deposit, loan to value, attitude to risk etc. People may offer opinions but you should not rely on them instead of proper advice. If you have indeed applied to lots of different lenders through the EA advisor, I might have doubts about their ability to make appropriate applications so you might want to consider going to an independent broker.