Change of property, no valuation and change of product fee?

KatieDee

We had a mortgage offer from Barclays in regards to a property we were due to purchase. Unfortunately this fell through, and shortly after we found another.

The new property is approximately £30,000 more than the previous one. I called Barclays and asked them what we should do and our adviser suggested we amend the current application. She said we could start again from the beginning, but it was probably quicker and easier to amend the existing offer.

We did this and were told that a new valuation was not required. We do however need to pay a fee of £150 due to a "change of product before offer". We were expecting this, but the whole process is confusing me slightly.

I would have thought Barclays would need to value the property regardless of how close and similar it is to the previous one. I didn't think they were able to amend an existing offer if the purchase price was higher, either.

Is there anybody "in the business" or who has experience with Barclays who can tell me whether this is right? I understand the mortgage offer, if agreed, will expire in six months from the original application too. Is it better to just save the £150 and start again?

ACG

Im not sure many brokers have that much experience with Barclays. Every broker I know tries to avoid them.

They may have just done a desktop valuation possibly?

MortgageMamma

I agree with ACG, he is right, they are a nightmare to deal with for clients as well as brokers.

Hope you get it sorted, but prepare yourself for delays and confusion

KatieDee

MortgageMamma wrote: »

I agree with ACG, he is right, they are a nightmare to deal with for clients as well as brokers.

Hope you get it sorted, but prepare yourself for delays and confusion

Ugh, this is so true.

So we were offered the amendment for a fee of £150, but this means we only have our mortgage offer for another 14 weeks before it expires.

I asked if we could reapply from scratch, avoid the fee and also renew our six month period, to which the mortgage adviser said yes.

So it's a brand new application, from scratch, including all up to date bank statements and ID. She said she can pull across most of our previous information and just needs to confirm our outstanding credit card balances. It will then go back through to the underwriters and be considered as a new application.

So either way, we'll need a new credit check. One way is just marginally easier.

Should we apply again and take the six months or pay the fee and amend?

MortgageMamma

You could ask the mortgage adviser what the likelihood is of them renewing the mortgage offer if you run out of time

KatieDee

MortgageMamma wrote: »

You could ask the mortgage adviser what the likelihood is of them renewing the mortgage offer if you run out of time

Thank you for your reply. I did ask, but it was a very non-committal answer. She said that they can extend in certain cases but often it would result in a brand new application being required. My partner and I discussed it and didn't really want the pressure of having to complete within 12 weeks, or going though a whole new application if not.

We decided to start the application from scratch - we were due to get the recommendation tonight, with the application to be submitted immediately after, but their systems are down, so we have to wait until Wednesday!

Barclays have decent customer service but their actual process seems to take a long time. In the few months I've been dealing with them, they've had more "system issues" than I can count. I'd probably consider another mortgage provider at this point if we hadn't already had an offer from them.