Non Standard Construction Help !!

Hysteria

Hi

I have a what I am now led to believe a Non Construction House Unity 2 build.

Halifax Gave me a mortgage on the house nearly 3 years a go and this was never mentioned or picked up on the Survey / Valuer report when they offered me the mortgage. I have lived in the house since 2006 with my ex wife. Nothing was advise to us when we bought it about a non standard construction. Roll on to 2015 and we split up. I bought her out of the house for £30K which was half of the equity.

There was a lot of equity as soon after we moved in we ploughed 75K in to Extensions to the house.

I have had it for sale for 1 year and I got a buyer for it about 4 weeks ago who loved it and really wanted it i accepted 5K under the asking price, when they surveyed it for there mortgage with the Halifax also, it came out that the house was a Unity 2 which I was un aware off as I was never told.

Now I am locked in a dispute with the Halifax as they gave me a mortgage on the property and refused my buyer a mortgage on it as they were with Halifax too and wanted to port there mortgage over.

I have now lost my buyer and I have lost the purchase of my next house too ?

Halifax gave me £300 for my distress last week as it took me 3 days on the phone to get anyone at Halifax to listen to me.

They have now gone quiet saying they cannot doing anything as collies the people they use to survey / value before they offer you a mortgage will now not send them them a copy of the report ??

Freaking out here now do i have a house i cannot sell or will struggle to sell.

Any advice !!

davidmcn

Apart from the fact that lenders' policies will change from time to time, it's not the lender's job to give you advice about the type of construction - you need to rely on your own surveyor for that. Did you get your own survey?

Hysteria

Back in 2005 when we bought the house as a couple myself and my partner got the house surveyed and was approved for a mortgage with First Active and this was never mentioned.

Roll on to 2015 when i was buying me Ex wife from the house Halifax sent a valuer around to value it / survey it in order to accept me for the mortgage i wasnt able to get the full amount on my own so my brother went on the mortgage in name only so i was accepted.

Again nothing mentioned about the house being non standard. its now so hard to tell due to the amount we extended it.

First Active will not send me anything from the original purchase i have tried. Halifax will not send me anything from when i bought my ex out of the house. i am just kept in the dark. Halifax acknowledge i have a complaint but will not give me any answers as thye are thinking when i got the new mortgage with them my broker has withheld this info from me in order to get the commission but they cannot prove that yet... its all a big mystery to me.

davidmcn

I had missed the fact you had remortgaged - but that means you'd own the flat anyway even if you hadn't switched to the Halifax. It's probably mortgageable with other lenders even if not with your prospective buyers' preferred lender. This is the trouble with "porting" - there's no guarantee that the bank will be happy with the next house you choose.

stator

If you didn't have your own survey done, then you have no complaint to make.


The bank look after their own interests, they don't provide you with advise about whether you should buy the property or not.


The Unit 2 housing type is designated defective, so no mortgage lender will touch it unless it's been 'fixed' with a PRC repair certificate.
It's possible the council already did this work, or a previous owner did this work.

teneighty

A Unity Type 2 house is very obviously of non-traditional construction so it must have had some cladding or a full PRC repair for both the mortgage valuers and yourself not to have noticed. What are the external walls made from?

You might have had a complaint against the original mortgage valuation but that is now out of time.

Probably your best bet is to investigate the repairs that have been carried out to see if that makes it mortgageable.

lindens

I bought an ex-prefab house that had previously (as in 12 years ) had all the corrective work done. I phoned the council who told me the surveyors who oversaw the work, I rang the surveyors and they sent me a certificate/.written confirmation of corrective works, which i provided to my mortgage company.

Computer_Beginner

Have you spoken to your neighbours about this?
Is the house on a street / estate of similar houses?

Hysteria

I have spoken to my neighbor who now informs me hes lived there 30 years and has never been able to get a mortgage and in the end he gave up. His house has had 3 owners. 1 an estate agent who sold it cash to someone in Bristol. then another owner who bought it cash who lives around the corner. he has rented it for 30 years.

here is a time line. What i have since found out

House built 1940 something

Lived in till 60's by who knows

Bought be My mum in laws Friends mam lived in until death
No mortgage left to mum in laws friend they lived in it for 20 years then emigrated to spain there daughter lived there whilst at uni etc.

House was then rented until 2005 to various people

Bought by my mum in law on a mortgage no mention of Unity 2 or construction on the survey as her friend in spain needed money to prop up there bar they had run ever since they moved to spain

Completely ripped out and decorated to flip it

My wife and i at the time had just sold our own home (Dorma Bungalow) in the boom of 2005 for a lot of money as the council refused to let us extend it so we decided to move to another house we could extend

We had this surveyed when buying it through First Active nothing on the survey

Spent 75K extending it and lived there no issues until 2013 and decided to move again closer to the catchment area for our kids Primary school / senior schools back in the same street as our old dorma bunglaow up the road but a bigger house

2013 - late 2014 rented out to family friends.

We seperated and i took the house over

I got a mortgage in 2016 on my own name + brother Surveyed by Halifax no issues

Decided in 2017 whats the point in rattling around in a 4 bed house on my own put it up for sale

Got a buyer 2018 accepted offer etc halifax surveyed the house for the new buyer and declined them

So i spent 3 days on the phone finally Halifax agreed it was not fair to me to not offer them a mortgage whilst i have one with them.. they gave me £300 for my inconvience whilst they investigate.

update from today.. Halifax have a copy of the survey report now and it states this is not a Unity 2 build when they surveyed it to give me the mortgage and advised they are still investigating to how they now fix this.... Even though the house is a unity 2 build it has been missed every time in the last 3 sales.

I have now lost my next house.. as i couldnt complete. and Halifax have advised i need to take it off the market until they can come back to me. and i have had to cancel 2 cash buyers this weekend for viewings.

TrickyDicky101

The lender's valuation surveys are for their own purposes - so whether or not the construction type was identified on them has no bearing on your own position I'm afraid. Only if you paid for your own survey (homebuyer's or building survey) might you have any comeback on the surveyor (not the lender).

Computer_Beginner

Hysteria wrote: »

I have had to cancel 2 cash buyers this weekend for viewings.

Why have you needed to cancel viewings from cash buyers?
It sounds like you're going to need to sell to a cash buyer.
Or a buyer who is using a less stringent mortgage lender.