Does Halifax allow retention?

aferrary

Hi all,

I've been reading a lot in this forum, however I am not able to find this info or some similar experience.

I am trying to buy a property of around £230k that requires some work, however my mortgage offer has been declined.

This attempt has been with Barclays and they have denied after asking for an electrical report and it came back as unsatisfactory and quoted around £1400 to get the work done.

Barclays doesn't do retention so it was basically a "no" without any further info about how to make this work.

MA has now mentioned Halifax, however that comes with a cost and no guarantee of an offer. I would like any info or similar experience with Halifax retaining the value or being less fussy than others lenders. Our best bet would be a mortgage retention I suppose.

The property was built in 1975 and the electrical is out of date (of course), however the vendor has no money to fix it and I can't fix without a contract (and the contract doesn't get signed before the mortgage offer).

The details is: Me and my partner are not British or European, so only Barclays and Halifax are willing to lend us and apparently, we are fine (credit ok) and the problem was really the property.

ComputeAngel

can't answer your original query but if you are on ILR then any bank in Britain should be able to offer you Mortgage

aferrary

I understand the IRL would help, however the problem here is the property.

If all lenders have similar requirements about the electrical regulation and dont allow retention, then this would be a general issue not related to my nationality.

The estate agent and MA dont seem to have experience with a similar situation. All posts I can find are from 2013 or older an it does seem that Halifax is better to deal with when buying properties that require work. However, nothing from the last year or so.