Credit card use when buying a house

ItsMrsW

Hi,
We are buying a new build which means that we ended up with an 'extras' bill of 7K, and we have just over 5 still to pay when we complete. We were told this gets added to our final bill from the solicitor along with the stamp juty.

I have a credit card with zero balance, so we had in mind that we'd pay that final bill with that, but having read a few conversations online I'm concerned we might scupper the whole mortgage deal if we did that.

Our options currently are:

1) pay the whole lot with my credit card
2) make a balance transfer of the amount we'd need (about 6k) from my bank account so we have the funds to pay it. (I'm with Barclaycard who are presently offering 0% interest on this until Sept 2017, so very tempting).

Can anyone tell me whether doing either of the above is not advisable? We have our mortgage arranged and have already exchanged contracts - am I wrong in thinking they won't check our credit card balances or money coming into/out of our accounts after this stage? It's not like we'll be borrowing beyond our means as the minum repayement to my barclaycard would only be just over £100.

Any help much appreciated!

Thanks.

Yulia

Hi. I did the same (option 1) when I bought my first home in 2014. I paid my legal and sol fees on my credit card. However there was no any second check on my credit, as duration from mortgage application to getting home keys was just under 3 months,
If you worried that second credit check will hit you hard after using credit card for expense, then that will depend totally on lender (some lender do credit check again) however the duration from mort application To releasing money for completion is long enough then lender may do soft credit check on you.
Ask adviser

Malmo

You expose yourself to the risk that the lender will credit check you again, when incurring further debt during any part of the process. It's your decision but to answer your question as to whether or not it's advisable, I'd say no as for me, the risk is too great to potentially impact the offer, which was based on your financial circumstances at that time (with no card debt).

ap1985

I agree with Malmo on this one. It is not worth taking the risk of a lender credit checking you again!

ItsMrsW

Thanks.
I checked with our solicitor who unfortunately doesn't take credit card payments and he advised if we're going to do a balance transfer to my account leave it as long as we can just in case. So I'll do it on the day we complete I think.

Hopefully this will be fine!

WestonDave

I'd check with your solicitor first regardless of the mortgage lender.


Firstly putting stuff on a credit card often incurs a % fee for the vendor - they may be happy enough to swallow that on their fees, but rather less happy to swallow it on stamp duty and "extras".


Secondly cards have a small risk of a chargeback. That means that the funds which arrive are harder to define conclusively as cleared. Money which needs to be passed on such as stamp duty or developers extras should really be fully cleared before it is passed on. They may not therefore be willing to accept payment for these items this way.


Both the firms I've worked in have only accepted card payments for their fees for the reasons above. (I realise this isn't actually what you asked but may be worth bearing in mind as it would be a nightmare if you banked on using the card and had to try to find an alternative at short notice).


(Cross posted!)