FTB cash buyer remortgage options

Porcupine

Let's say I buy a house with cash. I've not had a mortgage before, and would be a FTB.

Some time down the road I decide I want to get a mortgage - for example, I want to do some major refurbishments, build an extension or simply have another use for my money.

Does this count as a 'FTB mortgage' (standard, popular and thus easy to find), a normal non-FTB mortgage (easy again), a retirees-in-dire-straits remortgage (trouble) or a special weirdness (avoid, avoid)?

Is doing this therefore a bad plan because it falls between lenders' buckets, or would it straightforwardly map onto products that are easily available?

If this is specially weird, does it make sense therefore to have a tiny mortgage so as to appear 'normal' to lenders?

Or what if I wanted to move to a bigger house that I couldn't fully afford with cash? Is that back into normal FTB territory, or would a STB-without-existing-mortgage again be specially odd?

Annisele

It's relatively normal, though you'll probably find it counts as a "remortgage" (because you're not buying a new property).

Yorkie1

I think kingstreet calls it a 'mortgage of an unencumbered property', if memory serves right.

Porcupine

Aha, 'unencumbered property' seems to be the magic phrase (I never would have guessed it!). That brings up terms like (from Halifax):

Loans on mortgage free properties are treated as purchases not remortgages and so must be keyed as 'Home Movers'. The customer is only eligible for the Home Mover range of products and not the remortgage products or incentives. Free legals are not available for these applications and there is no right to appeal the property valuation.

which seems to be fair enough (though I don't know how broad the 'Home Mover range' might be). On the other hand, the Woolwich say:

Unencumbered Properties - Maximum mortgage available is reduced to 80% LTV in line with lenders criteria for Remortgages - subject to product availability/LTV criteria.

so sounds like some treat it as a new purchase and some as a remortgage.

kingstreet

Halifax only treats it like a purchase as it doesn't offer the free legals package on unencumbered properties and its system can't cope with a remortgage without that kind of product/package being offered.