Getting a mortgage on a high-rise ex local property

TinyDragon1990

Does anyone have experience with getting a mortgage on a high rise ex local property? Does the limited range of products available make these properties difficult to resell? 

We had an offer accepted on an ex local property in central London recently, but didn't realise lenders would consider it high rise. We understand that it's more difficult to get a mortgage on ex local buildings anyway, but a couple of lenders our broker approached have rejected on the basis that high rise ex local buildings aren't considered security by most lenders and therefore resale would be difficult in the event it was repossessed. Their terms and conditions didn't rule out lending on properties of this type, so we're concerned that it being high-rise may significantly limits the range of mortgage products available compared to those for low rise ex council buildings. We're still looking for something suitable, but I'm concerned that even if a product is available, it will be difficult for us to resell the property in future and this could even drive the value down. 

Thanks for your help!

TinyDragon1990

It doesn't look like you can delete posts in this forum but we've now decided the property isn't viable for us. Taking into account low private ownership in the building on top of the high rise issue, it looks like there's only a handful of lenders who would even consider it. Back to the search...

Edi81

TinyDragon1990 said:

Does anyone have experience with getting a mortgage on a high rise ex local property? Does the limited range of products available make these properties difficult to resell? 

We had an offer accepted on an ex local property in central London recently, but didn't realise lenders would consider it high rise. We understand that it's more difficult to get a mortgage on ex local buildings anyway, but a couple of lenders our broker approached have rejected on the basis that high rise ex local buildings aren't considered security by most lenders and therefore resale would be difficult in the event it was repossessed. Their terms and conditions didn't rule out lending on properties of this type, so we're concerned that it being high-rise may significantly limits the range of mortgage products available compared to those for low rise ex council buildings. We're still looking for something suitable, but I'm concerned that even if a product is available, it will be difficult for us to resell the property in future and this could even drive the value down. 

Thanks for your help!

TinyDragon1990 said:

It doesn't look like you can delete posts in this forum but we've now decided the property isn't viable for us. Taking into account low private ownership in the building on top of the high rise issue, it looks like there's only a handful of lenders who would even consider it. Back to the search...

Deleting posts is bad form on forums. 

K_S

TinyDragon1990 said:

Does anyone have experience with getting a mortgage on a high rise ex local property? Does the limited range of products available make these properties difficult to resell? 

We had an offer accepted on an ex local property in central London recently, but didn't realise lenders would consider it high rise. We understand that it's more difficult to get a mortgage on ex local buildings anyway, but a couple of lenders our broker approached have rejected on the basis that high rise ex local buildings aren't considered security by most lenders and therefore resale would be difficult in the event it was repossessed. Their terms and conditions didn't rule out lending on properties of this type, so we're concerned that it being high-rise may significantly limits the range of mortgage products available compared to those for low rise ex council buildings. We're still looking for something suitable, but I'm concerned that even if a product is available, it will be difficult for us to resell the property in future and this could even drive the value down. 

Thanks for your help!

Thank you for not deleting the post as it could still help someone else who comes across this.

For others who come across this thread - ex-LA, high-rise (defined differently depending on the lender), type of construction, % private ownership, lift arrangements, deck-access (if any) etc. are all criteria that can individually and separately be relevant with respect to a mortgage.

Tall ex-council flats will always have a smaller pool of lenders willing to consider (doesn't necessarily and usually the difficulty to sell is reflected in the price paid. The smaller pool of lenders doesn't automatically mean higher rates as all you need is one mainstream lender to say yes. 

Most importantly, the location of the block also matters as mainstream lenders will often relax ex-council criteria for London postcodes. An ex-council flat in greater London is relatively easy to mortgage while the exact same building type and construction in a small city outside might well be unmortgageable.

Personally the only times I've not been able to find a mainstream/mainstream-ish mortgage for an ex-council London flat is when there's an issue with the building construction type or there are known repairs.

TinyDragon1990

Deleting posts is bad form on forums. 

Sorry, I didn't realise that was the etiquette here. On the forum I normally use it's better to delete questions if you no longer need an answer to make sure it doesn't waste anyone's time- as long as there aren't replies already of course. 

TinyDragon1990

K_S said:

TinyDragon1990 said:

Does anyone have experience with getting a mortgage on a high rise ex local property? Does the limited range of products available make these properties difficult to resell? 

We had an offer accepted on an ex local property in central London recently, but didn't realise lenders would consider it high rise. We understand that it's more difficult to get a mortgage on ex local buildings anyway, but a couple of lenders our broker approached have rejected on the basis that high rise ex local buildings aren't considered security by most lenders and therefore resale would be difficult in the event it was repossessed. Their terms and conditions didn't rule out lending on properties of this type, so we're concerned that it being high-rise may significantly limits the range of mortgage products available compared to those for low rise ex council buildings. We're still looking for something suitable, but I'm concerned that even if a product is available, it will be difficult for us to resell the property in future and this could even drive the value down. 

Thanks for your help!

Thank you for not deleting the post as it could still help someone else who comes across this.

For others who come across this thread - ex-LA, high-rise (defined differently depending on the lender), type of construction, % private ownership, lift arrangements, deck-access (if any) etc. are all criteria that can individually and separately be relevant with respect to a mortgage.

Tall ex-council flats will always have a smaller pool of lenders willing to consider (doesn't necessarily and usually the difficulty to sell is reflected in the price paid. The smaller pool of lenders doesn't automatically mean higher rates as all you need is one mainstream lender to say yes. 

Most importantly, the location of the block also matters as mainstream lenders will often relax ex-council criteria for London postcodes. An ex-council flat in greater London is relatively easy to mortgage while the exact same building type and construction in a small city outside might well be unmortgageable.

Personally the only times I've not been able to find a mainstream/mainstream-ish mortgage for an ex-council London flat is when there's an issue with the building construction type or there are known repairs.

Thanks for your reply. It's interesting to know that that's been your experience- that was what we were expecting when we made the offer, and we're feeling pretty baffled that it's so hard to get a mortgage. It doesn't have structural issues or repairs, and we've seen plenty of similar flats on the market in this part of London that aren't being sold as cash buyers only. But it does have several of the features that can be red flags for mortgage providers, plus there's very few recent sales in the building.