Is a mortgage offer portable?

KayTM

We received a full mortgage offer from HSBC, which we had one month to accept. We accepted it, and now have six months to draw down the loan.

The original offer was made based on us buying Property A. That now looks as though it may fall through as the exchange hasn't happened as planned. Given that the mortgage itself was portable, is the mortgage offer also portable? In other words, can we now use that same offer to buy a different property? Obviously it would be subject to their valuer giving it the OK and all the usual legal stuff.

In a nutshell, would we be good to proceed to buy Property B (or C...) with the existing offer or would we need to start from scratch with a new mortgage application?

DandelionPatrol

You would start from scratch with a new application, but as they currently think you are good for the money, they would be unlikely to let you go as a customer.

minimike2

You can just ask them to change the property details on the application. If there is no change in loan amount / LTV then subject to a new valuation there is no reason to have to complete a whole new application. Any material changes and they will re-assess it for sure, but you don't need to start all over again, just update your ongoing application.

It's not "porting" in the sense of the definition of what porting is. It's just changing your application details.

KayTM

Thanks, Mike. That's the answer I was hoping for.

I know I could just try asking the lender but I don't want to involve them yet and risk complicating things. There's still a chance that we might exchange on Property A.

KayTM

Ah, I've just seen the bit you added at the end. I'm not sure that is the answer I was looking for. We've already applied successfully, been offered a loan and accepted it. I hope to heck we don't have to go back to the application stage. I'd hoped they'd simply transfer the loan agreement to Property B (subject to an acceptable valuation).

amnblog

A mortgage offer is not portable.


A mortgage product currently in force may be.


Since you have recently been financially underwritten for the first property the Lender may cross reference the information and simply need to value the new property to issue an issue.


There may be complications where data you provided previously is now out of date (wage slips, bank stats) and may need to be updated.


Some Lenders have a simple process for this that does not mean closure of the current application, some require the whole thing is started from scratch and they wont even cross reference information.

KayTM

Thanks, amnblog.

There wouldn't be any problems for us about providing new pay slips or bank details, etc. That said, there is a chunk of our money now sitting in our solicitor's client account which was to be the deposit on Property A. But I guess that still counts as being ours despite our bank balance being lower.

We had been led to believe that the vendors were ready to exchange. However, when the date of exchange came... and went... it then transpired that there is some hold up with their own purchase.

We now have about three weeks left before we have to move out of where we are now. No wonder I'm getting worried. I've tried looking for temporary accommodation to fill the gap, should that become necessary, but most lets are 6 months minimum. We'd just need somewhere to tide us over - and time is running out. Perhaps I should start a new thread about the possibilities of finding a short-term place to stay.

BTW, the lender is HSBC just in case you have info about how they approach such things.

class2ldn

What about a hotel? Not ideal but most will strike up a deal if you want to stay for a while.
Have you got anywhere to store your stuff in the meantime?

HappyMJ

KayTM wrote: »

Thanks, amnblog.

There wouldn't be any problems for us about providing new pay slips or bank details, etc. That said, there is a chunk of our money now sitting in our solicitor's client account which was to be the deposit on Property A. But I guess that still counts as being ours despite our bank balance being lower.

We had been led to believe that the vendors were ready to exchange. However, when the date of exchange came... and went... it then transpired that there is some hold up with their own purchase.

We now have about three weeks left before we have to move out of where we are now. No wonder I'm getting worried. I've tried looking for temporary accommodation to fill the gap, should that become necessary, but most lets are 6 months minimum. We'd just need somewhere to tide us over - and time is running out. Perhaps I should start a new thread about the possibilities of finding a short-term place to stay.

BTW, the lender is HSBC just in case you have info about how they approach such things.

What would happen if you stayed on after the 3 week period?

If it's a tenancy you can usually just stay on. A new tenancy agreement would be 6 months so a B&B could be an option for the very short term.

KayTM

Our landlords are decent people, as are we. We'd not put any stress or hassle onto them, such as trying to maximise our stay because we could do it legally. (We had to evict a tenant from our home many years ago and I'd not put anyone through that, especially since our landlords have been good.)

I had thought of trying a hotel or B&B in the short-term - if needs must. But there again, a six month rental on a little flat might cost about the same and offer a bit more space.

Storage won't be a problem. There seems to be plenty of self-storage companies around these days. We don't have a huge amount of stuff anyway, as we're coming out of rental.

Maybe it won't come to this, I'm just the type that hates uncertainty and needs to have a Plan B. It'll probably all work out fine one way or another.