Financially qualified????

bobbytooshoes

Hi
We are first time buyers and have finally found a house we would like to buy.
We have an agreement in principle from our mortgage lender so rang the estate agents today with an offer.
Was advised that we would have to be financially qualified by the estate agents which means a 1 hour appointment with them to which we need to take Id, recent payslips and a p60.
I'm a little confused, is this normal? Surely the mortgage in principle financially qualifies us?
They did say that they would pass our offer on to the vendors but not to expect any feed back until we had been financially qualified!!

G_M

View the property, and make your offer in writing, in a letter. Include the fact that you have a Mortgage arranged in principle and that you are FTBs with no property to sell.

That is all the seller needs to know.

If you divulge all your finances (salary, savings, MIP amount etc) then the EA, and therefore th seller, will know exactly how much you can afford which will be a huge advantage to them in negotiating the price.

Lovelyjoolz

Yes, your mortgage in principle should financially qualify you. The agent is trying to get you to speak with their own associated mortgage broker in the hope that you will use them and therefore earn the EA a comission. They are taking the preverbial. However, is the house worth 1 hr of your time spent with the broker?

If you want to, you could play hard ball with the EA and tell them that you are not interested in their broker and, if they are not willing to accept your exisiting MIP then you will be withdrawing your offer. My guess is that they will back down rather than risk loosing their agents fee on a sale.

If you do choose to go that way, if I were you, I'd put a note through the door of the house letting the vendor know that their agent's actions have potentially lost them a sale.

jbainbridge

Qualified?!? ... perhaps they'll give you a certificate!

I'd echo what G_M says ... and they just want you to talk to their adviser so they can get a fee for selling you the mortgage.

Fire_Fox

Offer in writing enclosing your mortgage in principle and/ or clearly stating your strong position as a buyer. By law the agents have to put all offers forward to the vendor.

bobbytooshoes

Thanks g_m
I absolutely don't want to go into anything financially with the estate agent but they have said that we can't proceed any further with our offer until they have financially qualified us.
So would you call back tomorrow and refuse the appointment and tell them we will submit our offer in writing? I assume you mean to the EA and not direct to the vendor?

jbainbridge

Absolutely refuse the appointment. It may be that your MIP exceeds the offer you are making ... you wouldn't want the agent / vendor to know how much you _could_ borrow!

G_M

bobbytooshoes wrote: »

So would you call back tomorrow and refuse the appointment and tell them we will submit our offer in writing? I assume you mean to the EA and not direct to the vendor?

Yes.

Why not write to both? It demonstrates to the seller that you are serious AND ensures the EA does not hold back you offer in favour of someone they might earn mortgage commission off.

Credit-Crunched

G_M wrote: »

Yes.

Why not write to both? It demonstrates to the seller that you are serious AND ensures the EA does not hold back you offer in favour of someone they might earn mortgage commission off.

I had the same problem, I had a mortgage sorted and did not want to see the EA broker.

I simply put a note through the door of the house I wanted to purchase, saying that the EA was preventing me putting an offer on their home.

Needless to say I had a very angry EA call up, after I told them to take the bass out of their voice, do their job, and treat me with a little more respect, I had a grovelling apology and my offer was accepted that afternoon.

Don't let these under qualified, wide boys bully you.

bobbytooshoes

Wow, thank you all for the quick replies.

Answered my suspicions that this 'financial qualification' is all a load of cobblers. Shall be ringing them back in the morning to advise them we do not require this appointment and re iterate our position and follow this up in writing.

We have got the vendors telephone number so if we have no luck with the estate agent may try speaking with them directly. They are divorcing and seem keen to sell so I would imagine they would be non too pleased with the agent trying to hold up proceedings.

Credit-Crunched

No worries, keep us updated.

I will be amazed if the Vendor is aware of this financial exam you have to pass before you receive your Hogwarts certificate of Finanicial Worhtyness