Conflicting information on cash incentives on new build property

melissa1709

Hi everyone

We are in the process of buying a new build too property. The house already had carpets/flooring and turf in when we viewed it, and they also offered us 5k cashback, stamp duty (£1240) paid and £1116 towards our legal fees. Totalling cash incentives of £7356. Brilliant, all is well and good.

Valuation took place last Friday and on Tuesday our mortgage broker advised they would not offer due to incentives affecting loan to value and we would need to pay stamp duty and legal fees ourselves totalling £2356. We were annoyed but bit the bullet and said fine. Now we have struggled to get in touch with our mortgage advisor at all recently and for the most of our application he hasn't really dealt with us himself. (He also owns an estate agents who sold our current property and is getting the girl who works there to do everything. Baring in mind she's an estate agent not a mortgage advisor).

So I took it upon myself to contact the Halifax to find out why we were to pay all of the legal fees ourselves when I was always told that cash incentives up to 5% of purchase price are allowed. In our case this is £7000. They advised aslong as incentives only add up to £7000 this is fine and our mortgage will go to offer.

To me, this says we don't need to pay these fees ourselves. We simply need to pay the £356 we are over the incentive limit and the builders will pay the rest. Confirmed this with builders also.

A bit annoyed to be quite honest, had I not called the Halifax we would have paid £2356 which is completely unnecessary. Also annoyed at the lack of contact and updates.

I may also be misunderstanding what Halifax have said (god I hope not) - what are people's thoughts on this? Does it sound right about cash incentives being fine aslong as they don't exceed 5%? Also thoughts on how I should now approach my mortgage advisor?

Thanks in advance!

Thrugelmir

What has the builder declared as incentives? Anything on top of the cash contributions, i.e. the carpets.

melissa1709

On the CML they have stated carpets, vinyl and turf.

These were already in the house beforehand though so not something we asked for.

john987

It was 5% on ours too so I think you understood correctly from Halifax

melissa1709

Thanks for your reply John

Was this 5% in cash incentives? I've been told by the builders that carpets etc are not seen as money and should not be included in that 5%, I'm hoping this is the case.

Thrugelmir

melissa1709 wrote: »

I've been told by the builders that carpets etc are not seen as money and should not be included in that 5%, I'm hoping this is the case.

Included in the property selling price. But add no value.

Developers like to play smoke and mirrors with the true selling prices of their properties.