Worried we've messed up our house purchase!

EmKnox

Hi all,


I'm writing out of sheer panic here and I know some people are going to think I'm incredibly stupid!


Basically, we are young first time buyers. We had our first DIP of £220,000 issued by Halifax in April 2018. However, it took us almost a year to sort our credit reports out so we could get a 90% mortgage instead of 85% (I had no credit history whatsoever and my partner's wasn't great from being irresponsible when he was younger and living alone. I had to get a credit card to build my score).


This April, we had an offer accepted on a house that was only £98,000 as we didn't want to spend much on our starter home, let alone go anywhere near the £220,000 Halifax said we could afford. We have paid our solicitors everything we need to and they are currently holding our deposit for us. We are just waiting on our vendor's for exchange and completion dates.


I have just seen advice stating that you should not apply for any more credit until you have the keys due to there being an extra credit check before completion. I was never made aware of this and was not informed this by my Halifax advisor.


I have stupidly bought a new sofa set on finance (£950) ready for when we move in and my partner recently opened a balance transfer card to shift about £1000 over (the bank were aware of this credit card balance when we applied) and I am now panicking! We do have savings for furniture, but with the sofa being the most expensive thing we thought finance would help take the brunt of things and take the stress off from furnishing the rest of the house. (We rent so it's been hard to save up as much as we would have liked.)


Could this potentially mean we might have our mortgage offer withdrawn at completion or will these extra applications be taken into our original affordability? We can obviously pay these debts back with what we earn with the monthly finance payment only being £23 - and with Halifax being willing to lend 220k - but now I'm concerned we might have jacked it up with these things on our credit reports! We would be absolutely devastated as we really love the little house and have tried so hard to get this far!!


Please help!

[Deleted User]

Dont worry about this. Unless you were borrowing £219,500 Halifax wont care about a £23 payment to a sofa.
Im pretty sure at this point over half the country have sofa payments so they probably build it in to affordability finances already.

jp066

Can’t speak for everyone, but Halifax never did a second credit check for us, just the one when we applied.

EmKnox

Thank you for the info!


I've also just found out my partner now has £1100 on his credit card and £400 on his original one which I was unaware of so I'm a little frustrated.


I'm just hoping they either won't bother to credit check again or they will take our debts into the original affordability as they aren't huge.


I'm a panicker and just want the whole process to be over and done with!

Amst

Most lenders will work on a monthly repayment amount (not overall balance) and determining how this impacts your net disposable income.

As others have said above, the sofa repayment is negligible and if required I assume you could repay the credit cards, or at least reduce them to the amount the monthly repayments would still be affordable from Halifax's perspective?

EmKnox

Amst wrote: »

Most lenders will work on a monthly repayment amount (not overall balance) and determining how this impacts your net disposable income.

As others have said above, the sofa repayment is negligible and if required I assume you could repay the credit cards, or at least reduce them to the amount the monthly repayments would still be affordable from Halifax's perspective?

Yes, we can absolutely reduce the credit cards and have already started doing so on a weekly basis when my partner gets paid. I was just conscious of it being a huge no-go to have any extra credit applications on our reports no matter how little they are for before completion.


We even have the first "big" mortgage repayment set aside for when we finally move, and then the following payments are actually cheaper than our current rent which we pay no problem and always on time. Other than the credit cards, sofa and my partner's phone contract we have no other financial commitments.


We are only borrowing £88,200 out of the £220,000 they offered us so hopefully they won't hold the extra credit against us!

foxy-stoat

Its more about answering the questions truthfully that the mortgage adviser asks you, your numbers probably wont be an issue, you just need to tell them your financial situation. Your partner would of been asked the financial questions also.

EmKnox

foxy-stoat wrote: »

Its more about answering the questions truthfully that the mortgage adviser asks you, your numbers probably wont be an issue, you just need to tell them your financial situation. Your partner would of been asked the financial questions also.

We have taken this extra credit out since we answered all of the questions upon application which we were totally honest about, so would it be advisable to contact our advisor and let her know we have since taken out a bit of extra credit since we had our mortgage offer?


Thank you for your replies! It's greatly appreciated as we have never done this before and find it all a bit daunting and stressful!

foxy-stoat

There would of been a question are you expecting to increase your debt from now to completion....also you said that your partner had credit card balance from an old credit card.

If you dont want any nastys it may be better to call up your adviser, if they do a credit check before releasing funds they may be delayed, well that is the advice on here normally, they may not do a check but I wouldnt want to chance it.

EmKnox

foxy-stoat wrote: »

There would of been a question are you expecting to increase your debt from now to completion....also you said that your partner had credit card balance from an old credit card.

If you dont want any nastys it may be better to call up your adviser, if they do a credit check before releasing funds they may be delayed, well that is the advice on here normally, they may not do a check but I wouldnt want to chance it.

It seems that long ago that I can't quite remember what the questions were! :huh: Only that I know we were honest at the time and didn't expect to be taking any more on, which unfortunately we have ended up doing.


Thank you for the advice, I will give her a call and let her know!

EmKnox

Hi all,


Just an update,


We exchanged on Friday and are due to complete this coming Friday the 16th, the sofa finance appeared on my credit report at the weekend and I have since been in touch with my mortgage advisor at Halifax who has informed me that there won't be any further credit checks anyway.


So all good, all the irrational worrying for nothing, lol!