Buying First House-What Happens Now?!

MentalMinnie

Hello!

We're first time buyers and to say things happened fast would be an understatement! Found a really nice house out of the blue on Tuesday, but had no mortgage in place, so had to get one rushed through in order for us to put our offer in on Fridays tea time. Offer was accepted, and our solicitor has been instructed. This was late on Friday.

There is no onward chain, so can someone please explain what will happen next, and approx. time frame? Thanks

Din85

I assume you only have a DIP reference the mortgage with a amount they are prepared to lend you ?

Basically you will have to submit a full application for your mortgage, provide any id/payslips etc requested (this being the underwriting process), the property will also be valued by the lender to make sure it is worth the money you want to pay for it, and then hopefully they will offer you a mortgage on the property.

Meanwhile your solicitor will carry out the relevant searches on the property and get the contracts ready, this will take 4/6weeks normally.

Once everything is sorted, signed etc contracts are exchanged and then the purchase is completed.

It can be quick, or painfully slow.... we are at 4.5 months and should be completing this coming week with any luck.

MentalMinnie

Er, what's a DIP?!

MentalMinnie

Are you in a chain? Is that why it's taken so long?

Paulaviki

Decision in principle.

This is what you'd have unti you've had an offer accepted, then you go into the bank/building society and do the full application.

From what I understand its now a case of the valuation by the bank and searches being done by solicitors, then all the legal paperwork etc. Can all happen as quick as 6-8 weeks but it could take months!

MentalMinnie

Ah right. Well the offer was accepted tea time on Friday, so our mortgage advisor is coming on Tuesday to complete the forms, which i guess is the full application then.

We need to be out of our rental by the 5th May, so fingers crossed it all goes through.

The advisor said the only reason the full application would be declined was if we lied on the initial application and pay slips didn't match etc. or the survey deemed the property to be over priced. Is these the general consensus?

Have we already been credit checked to gain the DIP?

Paulaviki

Some lenders do a credit check for the DIP but some just do soft searches.

KatieDee

When people say it can take X amount of time, do they generally mean from offer stage, or once a solicitor has been instructed?

MentalMinnie

Ah, having checked the paperwork, and the credit checks have been done.

ConfusedofYorkshire

We pur our offer in on the 21st of January. It's chain free but it's plodding along slowly. The solicitors insist on airing each other letters, and then they right the buyer and vendor letters.

The thing that holding thing up at the moment is us getting quotes for work that needs doing which came from the survey. Hoping to complete by April.

There are too many variables to say how long it'll take you.

Din85

Depends who the lender is ref the credit checks, we went to Natwest, they did a hard search on initial appointment, then declined us as i had not been with my current employer long enough (that wasted a couple of weeks) then we went through a broker and the Halifax, we has a soft search at DIP, then once the application was submitted in full we have had a fair few more soft searches (quotations and unrecorded enquirers).

We were cautious as we had had one decline, and did not instruct the solicitors until we had a mortgage offer (another few wasted weeks).

Since then its been the seller and their solicitors holding things up, which is no real issue to me as im contracted in rental until the end of April lol.

Lots of reasons things are not always straight forward as we have found out.