Re - House Sale possibly falling through - options

redman1989

Hi All,

Me and my wife are in a chain and we have a strong feeling that our sale is about to fall through, even though we have been re-assured that the buyer is 100% committed, but 6 weeks and they have still failed to instruct solicitors is making me very suspicious..

We have a found a property we love and have a mortgage offer we were going to use the sale proceeds for our deposit.

If the sale falls through we still have enough money to pay for the deposit on the new purchase & stamp duty (which we would re-coup when the sale has has completed)

My concern is about the Mortgage company releasing the funds, i told them that the deposit monies was coming from the sale.

Without getting hung drawn and quartered for saying this - can we possible completion date and mortgage offer has been agreed, would their be any issues in that transaction or would it carry on as normal?

Comms69

You are asking the lender to now lend you for two properties, rather than one - I suspect the answer will be no.

Housebuy12345

What’s their reasoning

redman1989

Sorry if i misunderstood.

I'm not asking them to lend on the property we already own, the only detail they had on that side of things was the proof of deposit, which at the time and still could be the source.

What i'm saying is at risk of not loosing the property we have offered on we have the funds in the bank for the deposit, i'm asking would this even be queried?

@housebuy - the reasoning was they had instructed a law firm but their was a conflict but for 1.5 weeks they hadn't bothered to instruct anyone else further, now they instruct a survey but sole trader is only holiday for a month, it's just issue after issue after issue...our EA have said the buyer has absolutely 0 urgency even though she is buying it for her mother to live in.

Comms69

redman1989 wrote: »

Sorry if i misunderstood.

I'm not asking them to lend on the property we already own, the only detail they had on that side of things was the proof of deposit, which at the time and still could be the source.

What i'm saying is at risk of not loosing the property we have offered on we have the funds in the bank for the deposit, i'm asking would this even be queried?

Do you own your current property outright?

redman1989

Not quite, our payments are £200 a month we own 80% of it.

My question is still though, would this even be raised at any point during the transaction now? how would they be made aware, we wouldn't be renting it and would plan on having it sold ASAP could be during the purchase or slightly after. having reviewed the mortgage offer it doesn't have reference anything to do with our other property.

Comms69

redman1989 wrote: »

Not quite, our payments are £200 a month we own 80% of it.

My question is still though, would this even be raised at any point during the transaction now? how would they be made aware, we wouldn't be renting it and would plan on having it sold ASAP could be during the purchase or slightly after. having reviewed the mortgage offer it doesn't have reference anything to do with our other property.

Yes, ofcourse. Because your lender is assuming that your liability will end on property 1 at sale. The solicitor will not allow this to go through. The solicitor represents the lender as well as you.


Your offer is based upon a liability amount. You now wish to add to that. It's a non-starter without a new mortgage.

redman1989

Without going through the entire mortgage application again - would it be worth explaining to the underwriters about the situation? the only thing that surely changes is our outgoings go up by £200?

Comms69

redman1989 wrote: »

Without going through the entire mortgage application again - would it be worth explaining to the underwriters about the situation? the only thing that surely changes is our outgoings go up by £200?

House insurance, standing charges, council tax, service charges?......

Bossypants

If you get really desperate and are confident you could cover costs for both houses for an indefinite period, one potential option to consider is converting the mortgage on your old property to a BTL, but simply continue to try to sell it, rather than letting it out. This is not ideal because:


- You'll have to pay booking fees on the new BTL mortgage
- You'll have to find the additional 3% stamp duty for the new house, since you'll be buying it while still owning your old house
- You'll continue to be liable for the costs of both houses (ALL the costs, not just the mortgage payments) until you can sell the old one, which might be months or even years
- If you fail to complete on the sale of the old house within three years of completing on the new house, you won't be able to claim back the 3% additional stamp duty you paid on the new house


Those are just off the top of my head. I would consider it a last resort, but might be worth having in your back pocket if you really feel the need for it. I almost did it late last year, but found a buyer for the old property at the 11th hour and was able to link the sale with my purchase, so never went through with it.

redman1989

Thanks -

Did you make the mortgage lender on your new property aware of this & was their any issues.

I think our buyer is just super super slow with 0 urgency, we have just been contacted from the survey to tell us it's been booked in and asking our availability.