Letter/Deed of Postponement

scoey8

Hi wondering if anyone can help with this. Bought a property under right to buy 2 years ago so we are still in the 5 year 'discount repayment' period. 

Looking to remortgage to a high street lender but in order to do this i need a letter/deed of postponement from the council. We are not looking for additional borrowing just a better rate. When i search online it says agreeing to a letter/deed of postponement means the council will drop to third charge, how is this so? wouldn't they still be second charge e.g 1st charge - new lender, second charge - council. 

Was also wondering if there is anything in law that obligates them to agree to postponement providing no additional borrowing etc. or can they just refuse without reason. 

There is some confusion aswell over letter vs deed, it seems letter is required if you are in the right to buy process and deed is required if already completed the process. However my conveyancer is requesting a letter? 

Any help with this much appreciated. 

scoey8

Just bumping this in the hope someone can advise...thanks

Octoo

scoey8 said:

Just bumping this in the hope someone can advise...thanks

Just wondering how this went down in the end as I'm in a similar boat

strawb_shortcake

Octoo said:

scoey8 said:

Just bumping this in the hope someone can advise...thanks

Just wondering how this went down in the end as I'm in a similar boat

When I remortgaged under the RTB the deed of postponement was a real pain, further complicated as the house had been transferred from the council, to a HA and then to myself so there was still reference to the council in the deeds despite them not having any claim to the house. 

As I recall the HA had no idea what the DofP was, but a template was provided from somewhere but I had to pay £150 for them to complete the form, the HA stayed as second charge. 
I'd recommend anyone buying under RTB fix for 5 years to avoid the inevitable headache 

kingstreet

A deed of postponement is the Council's written agreement to remain a second charge to give the new mortgage lender the required first charge. After the first charge, there are only second charges so a third or fourth charge are still second-ranked charges behind the first.

Unfortunately, you won't get a remortgage without it; so investigate your existing lender's customer retention products as well where this wouldn't be a requirement.