Withdrawing from a mortgage offer?

geminoz

I'm after some advice please. We put an offer in on a home back in January, the vendor accepted our offer based on the fact that we could complete within 4 weeks. Well, we were ready within 4 weeks but they weren't, nearly 5 months later and there are still ongoing problems with land registry (the land that comes with the house was actually registered to next door) and today we have now found out that the neighbour is contesting the boundary so we are unable to complete until the dispute is sorted - which could take months. We have now come to the end of our tether and are thinking of withdrawing from the purchase (never mind the fact our mortgage offer was only valid for 6 months and is about to run out). I know I will have to pay the mortgage company a £150 withdrawal fee but will I still have to pay them the £999 application fee that was going to be added to the mortgage? If so do I have any grounds to claim this back from the vendor as legally they weren't actually in a position to sell the property. Grateful for any advice. Thanks

bigadaj

Might be worth just leaving until the mortgage offer runs out?

If the fee was to be added to the mortgage then you shouldn't have to pay until completion, the only thing might be that presumably you'd want to find another house and so would still want the mortgage on another property, so only survey fees should be lost.

kingstreet

What's this £150 withdrawal fee all about?

Usually, cancelling an application means you lose what you've paid, they don't normally get to charge you more.

Lender and product, please?

geminoz

It is a Woolwich mortgage. In the description of the mortgage it says "please note you will be charged a £150 Withdrawal fee in the following scenarios..you do not proceed with the mortgage". To be honest I don't mind paying the £150, it was the £999 I was panicking about but it sounds like that's not something I have to worry about now. Thanks

kingstreet

geminoz wrote: »

It is a Woolwich mortgage. In the description of the mortgage it says "please note you will be charged a £150 Withdrawal fee in the following scenarios..you do not proceed with the mortgage". To be honest I don't mind paying the £150, it was the £999 I was panicking about but it sounds like that's not something I have to worry about now. Thanks

I don't use Woolwich and now I remember one of the reasons why. I've just sourced a mortgage using a Woolwich product and you are quite correct. It is stated in the KFI.