Mortgage Offer Extention

Profoundry

Hi All,

We are in the process of buying a 2 bedroom new build pre fab house in Manchester city centre due for completion in December 2015.

So far, for various reasons not related to our own finances, we have been through 3 IFAs, 2 HTB applications, 2 valuations, 6 months of initial build delays and pushed through hurdles of a self employed mortgage application.

We have an offer accepted by Halifax (with Help To Buy) and were finally about to exchange contracts next week. We then got a call yesterday from the developers to say that our completion date is now delayed another 5 months to May 2016.

Our mortgage offer has a 6 month deadline which takes us till March 2016. Clearly our completion date is now 2 months past this point. It is an absolute nightmare on top of what has been a horrible first time process.

Our IFA says we should not exchange before having the extension in place and say that we cannot apply for an extension until a matter of weeks before the product runs out. Note that our developers are not pushing us to exchange, as the delays are entirely their fault.

Apparently there is a difference between the offer expiring and the drawdown deadline for the product. But no idea which situation we are in. Can it be both?

Does anyone have any advice on this as the thought of waiting 8 months to possibly get our extension rejected makes me feel sick.

kingstreet

Halifax has products which now have a 30 June 2016 drawdown deadline. You can change to one of these products now.

Once the valuation is six months old, Halifax will automatically ask Colleys to refresh it to ensure it remains valid.

Halifax is one of the easiest lenders to meet builder delays as we find on a daily basis, dealing with around five different firms and several sites for each one.

JimmyTheWig

I agree with the logic of not exchanging without getting the extension in place.
Exchange of contracts means that you must buy the property on the day you say you will buy it and if you don't they can sue you for any losses.
Without this extension in place you can't guarantee to be able to buy the property. So don't exchange.

Hopefully others can make suggestions as to how to get the extension granted.

Profoundry

kingstreet wrote: »

Halifax has products which now have a 30 June 2016 drawdown deadline. You can change to one of these products now.

Once the valuation is six months old, Halifax will automatically ask Colleys to refresh it to ensure it remains valid.

Halifax is one of the easiest lenders to meet builder delays as we find on a daily basis, dealing with around five different firms and several sites for each one.

Thanks Kingstreet. Wonder why my IFA (Contractor Financials) have not mentioned this? They claim to have a close relationship with Halifax.

kingstreet

Perhaps they don't turnover the newbuild business we do so don't come across the issue that often.

Profoundry

Sorry Kingstreet. What do you mean by "turnover"?

kingstreet

They don't do as many newbuild cases with Halifax as we do, so they may not have had this situation arise before.

Profoundry

kingstreet wrote: »

They don't do as many newbuild cases with Halifax as we do, so they may not have had this situation arise before.

I see. Well I dont want to wait 8 months whilst missing out on a possible easy product change because of this. Wonder how to find out without being rude.

libf

Profoundry wrote: »

I see. Well I dont want to wait 8 months whilst missing out on a possible easy product change because of this. Wonder how to find out without being rude.

The broker is working for you. Just asked him to look into changing your product into one with a longer date on it. Politely.

Profoundry

They said: "Unfortunately the longest Halifax are offering at the moment is Mar 2016. The product with the longer expiry are yet to be on the market which means we don’t know what they are and are unable to use them."

kingstreet

Here's just one example from the Affordable Housing range which can be used for HTB - Equity Loan;-

http://www.halifax-intermediaries.co.uk/products/mortgages/details/popup/default.aspx?code=FAK520