Found a great house, next steps for my situation?

combineharvester

Hi All,
I've found a house which would suit me perfectly. It's a new build and I'd use the help to buy scheme. An IFA seems to think that all of the numbers work out okay, and I have access to the bulk of my deposit already (and the full amount wouldn't be needed until completion, well into next year).

I'm tempted to ring the developer tomorrow and make a reservation, which would then give me 28 days to get everything sorted. However, I've not yet arranged a mortgage or filled in the help to buy forms, which the developers know. I imagine that mortgages take ages to arrange, and to complicate matters further I only find out (officially) if I have passed my probationary period at work in the new year, which is presumably a pretty key bit of evidence that most lenders would want to see.

My question is, I'm willing to risk losing half of the reservation fee (I would get it all back if help to buy application was unsuccessful, or half of it if I changed my mind), but at what stage am I fully "committed" to the purchase and would lose my deposit (or worse) if, say, I didn't get through my probation for some reason?

The obvious thing to do would be to wait a few weeks and then proceed, but I "know" that this will cost me the house, as in my area houses are generally only on the market for a few days before being bought, it really is competitive!

Any thoughts on taking the risk, laying down a reservation fee and hoping it all works out, or is this naive? How much money could I stand to lose on top of this?

Thanks :-D

FR_262

Don't do anything until you've passed you probationary period at work.

Mortgages don't take that long to sort out and at your appointment they will be able to tell you if you can have one. TBH I don't think you'd get one due to your work situation. Would you lend money to somebody who might lose their job in a few weeks?

I know it's disappointing but I think you should hang on a bit longer until your work situation is sorted.

combineharvester

Thanks, that's probably quite sensible. Another part of me wants to investigate any other possibilities. I wonder whether it might be possible to negotiate a longer period for the exchange of contracts with the developers (only one way to find out I suppose - give them a ring!)

I think I'll push the HR guys at work for an earliest date when they might be able to bring my probation forward to (after all, if I've been here nearly 5 months, so what's a few weeks - presumably they know if they still want me or not!). If that bears any fruit I'll try and chase it up with all the other parties and see if we can make sense of the timescales needed...

ging84

hold out putting down the reservation fee until they insist on it
mine were happy to wait till after i was approved on the help to buy scheme, you are not going to get that done this side of Christmas now
it was probably more than 2 months between first looking at our house and actually reserving because we held out for a better deal