Gifted Deposit

SEH180289

Afternoon all.. apologies for the long post...

My husbands gran passed away last year - his family (mum, aunt & uncle have inherited it) offered us her house to buy - its perfect for us, a semi detached joined to his aunts house, they dont want strangers living next door and they all want to keep the house in the family. (they were born and raised in the house, my husbands family and the grandchildren all spent their childhoods there).

My husbands mum & aunt both agreed to leave a gifted sum of money in the house for it to be affordable for us, and in order for the house to stay in the family.

So.. we've sold our house, just waiting on exchange, agreed a mortgage with santander, with us taking out approx 55% mortgage, with the rest made up of equity from our current house, and the gifted money from husbands mum & aunt - Santander know they full situation, the house is being bought at full market value, we're paying correct stamp duty etc. We sent the gifted deposit letters, to confirm its not to be repaid, they have no further interest etc. Santander agreed with it all, confirmed and sent our mortgage offer maybe 2 months ago and all good to go.

We were aiming to have exchanged and completed next weds.

Until... Last Friday when the bank contacted our solicitors out of the blue and say they have withdrawn the mortgage offer as the deposit is unacceptable. Waited until last night for a call back from the bank, who have now said that an Aunt is not an acceptable relative to receive a gifted deposit from.

Firstly, we dont understand how we could receive our offer based on the full information, then it be withdrawn at such a late date, with none of our circumstances having changed. When we received the offer they knew the gift was half from an aunt? We were completely honest from the start - I wanted to avoid any fall downs like this!


So now my husbands mum has said she will leave her full share of equity in the house instead, with his aunt no longer involved - the house is important to them and she's happy to help us.

Whats the likelihood of this going ahead now? I'm still waiting for them to discuss with the underwriters and call us back.. but I'm beside myself with worry about what we're going to do to resolve this? Should we approach a different lender?

This whole thing has been going on about 5 months and I'm just exhausted with it all

Thanks in advance!