Mortgage offer drastically changed.

Mprent11

Some advice would be very much appreciated.

My wife and I were offered a mortgage in principle by the Halifax 4 months ago for 207k. We proceeded with the sale of our current property and before we concluded missives we went back to the bank last month to confirm the offer was still in place which it was. Within this time we saw a house that we wished to purchase and had an offer of 195k accepted. As we had made a good profit on our house we only required a mortgage for 161k. We went back to the bank today and they said we now couldn't afford it and would only give us a mortgage for 127k. Considering we sold our house for 121k I found this laughable as we would only be able to afford a similar house to what we had just sold. The person in the bank we spoke to was shocked herself and couldn't explain the drastic change. In addition I might had we had spoken to 3 separate financial advisors who all said we could comfortably afford to buy a house up to the value of 230k. The only advice the Halifax representative could give us was to pay off the finance on our cars amounting to 7k in total. According to her this would allow us to take out a mortgage for 187k. I can't understand the drastic change and why paying off 7k in car finance can amount to the bank offering us an additional 60k. The Halifax representative completed 5 credit checks on us whilst we sat there which I wasn't happy about. She also said it's possible they may have double up on all our expenditure. I just want to know where we stand. We have temporary accommodation for 8 weeks when we're supposed to move into our new house. If we don't get the mortgage I have essentially made myself, wife and baby homeless on the information the bank have given us. We have done everything by the book and nothing in our circumstances have changed. They knew about the car finance from day one. We have 0 on credit cards and she said our credit rating couldn't be any better.

PLEASE HELP!!!

lovehackney

Go to another bank? Maybe get a broker to help you so you don't scatter gun applications.

David_White

Sounds like they've made a complete hash of it in the branch.

You've got two options really, try another bank or get help from a broker.

jojo9239

Get a broker a good one there worth there weight

Mprent11

Thanks. We will def consider a broker. I should have mentioned that the only reason we went to Halifax is because we have a £2550 early repayment charge which would be refunded if we take our mortgage back out with them.

David_White

Don't rule out Halifax with a broker.

Believe it or not some brokers understand the Halifax system far better than their own staff!

[Deleted User]

Here's one of the Halifax TV adverts ....


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Y6V5sqf0U


Sounds like rather than offering you something extra, they're taking something away! :mad:

Katgrit

Have they gone back and double checked everything? I got an AIP from Nationwide for £185,000 and only wanted to borrow £89,000. Yet when it came to the actual mortgage offer they would only agree to £84,000. I failed on affordability. Advisor was very nice about it, apologised and told me not to feel bad. I was baffled and demanded he speak to a manager so off he toddled. Came back 5 minutes later to say that he hadn't ticked the "Selling current property?" so the daft 'erbert had assessed me for lending ON TOP of my current £99,000 mortgage. So glad I protested!! Could they have done something similar in your case? Certainly sounds like they've done something wrong for it to make such a mahoosive difference!

Hutch100uk

We had a similar thing with Halifax and this was through a broker. They said we could borrow £205k (but only need £170k) using the affordability check. Once we had submitted all our documents (which only confirmed the exact information they already had), they came back with £160k. The would only agree to lend the £170k if I paid off my credit cards which were only £3k in total. I couldn't understand why £3k of debt would decrease a mortgage by £40k!!!

ExcelM

The reason a small debt like that makes such a difference is the amount of the monthly repayments. If you are repaying say £300 a month on a loan they will take this off the amount you have available for your mortgage repayments. So if your mortgage costs £600 a month but you have a loan which costs £300 they may decide you can only afford £300 to pay the mortgage. If you paid off the loan you would free up that extra £300. It is all about affordability now rather than 3 or 4 x your income (which does have something to do with it). Lenders' calculations of affordablility can be complicated. You need to decide whether you can take money out of the deposit to pay off the loan and then enable yourselves to get a bigger mortgage.