6 month rule

emss1992

My and my husband have bought a house last month. This month I’ve been told I need to relocate for work. We’re trying to go through options, one of which is putting our house back up for sale, but we’ve came across the 6 month rule. Does anyone know which lenders don’t use the 6 month rule or if all of them do? Trying to understand how feasible it is to sell our home. 

kingstreet

Your purchaser will still have plenty of lenders to choose from. However, the chances of your purchase being registered at the Land Registry at this point are slim and none so that nay be a bigger issue when the conveyancing stage arrives.

Robbo66

Its to do with money laundering so you may well be hard pushed to fine a solicitor that will undertake the conveyancing prior to the expiry of 6 months, that being said the sales process is currently taking a good 4 months, longer in some instances anyway.

user1977

Robbo66 said:

Its to do with money laundering so you may well be hard pushed to fine a solicitor that will undertake the conveyancing prior to the expiry of 6 months

It's a policy set by (some/most) mortgage lenders (their concern largely being that a rapid succession of owners is an indicator of mortgage fraud) - I've never heard of solicitors having any sort of separate professional difficulties with this sort of transaction.

kingstreet

user1977 said:

Robbo66 said:

Its to do with money laundering so you may well be hard pushed to fine a solicitor that will undertake the conveyancing prior to the expiry of 6 months

It's a policy set by (some/most) mortgage lenders (their concern largely being that a rapid succession of owners is an indicator of mortgage fraud) - I've never heard of solicitors having any sort of separate professional difficulties with this sort of transaction.

Me neither. It's lender anti-back to back action.

kingstreet

Sub-sale, not back to back. Sorry.

K_S

emss1992 said:

My and my husband have bought a house last month. This month I’ve been told I need to relocate for work. We’re trying to go through options, one of which is putting our house back up for sale, but we’ve came across the 6 month rule. Does anyone know which lenders don’t use the 6 month rule or if all of them do? Trying to understand how feasible it is to sell our home. 

@emss1992 Not much to add beyond what has been mentioned above. Unfortunately, the 6 month issue is one of those which impacts you much more as a seller than it would if you were the buyer. As a seller you only have limited influence over or sight of what your buyer does with respect to a mortgage. On top of that there'll also be buyer hesitance as to why you're selling in such short order.

FWIW, there are plenty of mainstream lenders who don't have an issue with considering purchases within 6 months subject to checking for things like sub-sales, distressed sales, etc.

hazyjo

How long do you have at work to relocate? They're not going to expect you to move within a month...

I'd market in a month's time, and then it'll only be 4 months until the 6 months is up. Are you sure you'd be happy buying somewhere straight away though? Is it an area you know? If you rent and don't buy immediately, you may have penalties if ending a fixed deal. You prob only have a limited time to buy if porting.

emss1992

Thanks everyone for the helpful answers.

Tiglet2

As you've only owned the property for a month, do you know if the Land Registry have updated the register to show you as the new owners yet?  There are backlogs at Land Registry and you won't be able to sell until the register is in your name.  

Conveyancing at the moment is taking around 4 months as solicitors are extremely busy, so this might work in your favour.

london21

Can be sold within 6 months but might limit the buyer pool.

Lenders such s Virgin money do not mind but Halifax for example don't like back-to-back sale.

Can expedite with land registry so will be registered because that's another issue when it comes to conveyancing.