Selling home shortly after buying

Nova1307

Hello all, 

First post here. I purchased a property as my new home almost five months ago which I have now decided to sell due to the fact that my personal circumstances have recently changed. My father recently passed away and I am planning to relocate several hundred miles in order to be closer to my mother so that I can provide more support. I could rent out the property but would prefer to have a clean break and release capital in order to buy a new home. 

I have read that many mortgage lenders will reject any mortgage applications where the seller has been the registered owner for less than six months. My question is - should I wait until six months have passed before marketing the property in order to not be limited to just cash buyers  or should I market the property right away? The other complication is that the property is new build and I have been advised that the Land Registry are currently taking around 12 months to register ownership for new builds. Could this pose a problem? My solicitor has advised me that my ownership is still waiting to be registered but this could be fast tracked (and take around 10 days) if the Land Registry are informed of an impending sale. Would most mortgage lenders accept that although I have not been the registered owner with LR for six months I did complete on the property six months prior to prospective buyers' mortgage applications?

Many thanks

user1977

The date of registration is when your application was originally submitted, not the date the LR completes processing it. And it shouldn't really be a problem, other than the fact that many solicitors seem to be lazy and can't be bothered looking at anything other than a completed registered title (after all, you managed to buy the property before it had its own title!).

The lenders' criteria are a bit vague about when the six months runs to, but at worst it's whenever the buyers' solicitor is reporting to the lender, which is going to be more than six months from your purchase completion date, so that isn't something to worry about. It's more going to be the concerns of buyers about whether you're concealing any more worrying reason for why you're selling so quickly.

canaldumidi

Different mortage lenders have different criteria, so it depends which lender your buyer uses.

The '6 months' would be from date of Completion, not date LR get round to updating their records.

If you bought 5 months ago, by the time any buyer completes you'll be well passed the 6 month point, so yes, market now.

GoogleMeNow

The buyer's solicitor will want the updated registered title though, so once there is a sale agreed, that will need to be expedited.  The six months that lenders prefer won't be an issue at all.  You'll be at six months ownership before the draft contracts reach the buyer's solicitor, particularly as you haven't got the property on the market yet.