Being a first time buyer in 2020

tilla92

When people say house buying is stressful, I would disagree - its proved to be cruel, unfair and soul destroying. In 2019 I earned £74,000 and I have a excellent credit rating, yet I’m being constantly messed about by lenders and I can’t get a first time buyer mortgage for £209,000 with a £40k deposit.

I put got an offer accepted on a flat in December 2019, mortgage was approved with 10% deposit soon after and we almost got to exchange but the survey found serious damp and roof issues and I had to pull out. That was the first attempt. 

I then offered on a different property just after lockdown and I needed to borrow 229k. Broker reassured me that everything would be fine as the agreement in principal and affordability calculator indicated that I could borrow around 260k, so applied for a mortgage with HSBC. They then took 4 weeks to let me know that they wouldn’t accept quarterly commission (cheers guys). That then meant that I just missed out on applying with Halifax who had just stopped accepting commission. I then applied with Santander but they offered me a max loan of 210k. I managed to borrow a little bit of money from family but I was still short. The vendor wasn’t willing to renegotiate on price so I had to pull out. Second attempt in the bin. 

I thought I’d give this house buying business one more shot... surely it would be 3rd time lucky. I found a cheaper house that I loved and I only needed to borrow around 209k. My offer was accepted and I applied for the mortgage with Santander immediately on the basis that they had offered me the amount I needed for this one on the last house and none of my documents had changed. Broker reassured me that this time it should go through without any issues.....
and here we are 43 days after the my application went to Santander with a current lending figure of 165k... 165k! LOL. It’s a different underwriter on this case and he didn’t like something about my payslips - I even got a letter from my managing director to outline all of my earnings and clarify my commission structure which completely answered all of his concerns but of course the underwriter disregarded the letter. The broker has escalated to his manager but it’s been 2 weeks now and I’ve pretty much all hope to be honest. 

So yeah, here I am 11 months since I first offered on a property, thousands of pounds wasted on solicitors, ridiculous amounts of disappointment and depression, and not even a house at the end of it all. Maybe I should just pack my bags and move to Australia or something... oh no, can’t even do that. 

I really hope no one else has to go through anything like this. Rant over. F Corona Virus.

Graeme1978uk

I might be speaking out of turn here, but a broker with a good understanding of the market should have known that the quarterly commission wouldn't be accepted by HSBC if that's their standard process?

MattMattMattUK

It sounds like your broker is not up to scratch rather than anything else.

haras_n0sirrah

As soon as COVID happened HSBC stopped accepting any additional income unless you worked for the NHS. They have now largely gone back to normal as of septemberish
Halifax do accept commission
Broker isn't coming up smelling of roses here.
There should be options for you on that salary but you need a second opinion from another broker.