What should we do? - mortgage due to expire

hpsauce86

Hi everyone,

Some of you will know me from my rants about this house we are buying. Sorry I’m advance for yet another one. 

Basically, I need some advice. We offered on our perfect house (after 4 years of looking and a huge amount of failures), and had it accepted on 5th February. Told it would be a quick sale, very short chain etc etc(we are not FTBs but it’s our first home together and are in rented with 4 week notice period). Great we thought! 

The vendor is buying a new build (terraced, fully built, one neighbour in).

We have rushed everything through, to the point we have been ready to exchange for 4 months now. Now we have just been told the vendor has sacked her solicitor (she’s very slack I have told her this for a while now, she just sits and waits for stuff to happen, not proactive and very unhelpful - computer says no type woman).

Our mortgage runs out first week of September (though we’ve said end of August as I want that leverage to rattle cages). 

On top of this we were told we’d exchange last week, and in fact every week for the last 3 weeks. Not happened. Now being told we won’t exchange and will miss our window to hand in notice without having to pay both rent and mortgage (that’s fine we have the money but feels wrong given it’s nothing we have caused). 

Our vendor has asked us to extend/get a new mortgage. I’m livid as we’ve all been working towards 22nd August to complete, both solicitors (pre sacking) had agreed this with us and the vendor. It could still happen. The rates go up again tomorrow so will almost certainly be a few extra pounds a month on mortgage, which although we can afford, we are nervous about because of the cost of living and having seen how much our bills have gone up we want to have cushion. 

What do we do?!? Do we ride it out until our mortgage is about to expire and hope it goes through? Or can we apply for a new mortgage and use the previous one if we make it in time? (Not even sure we can do that). 

In total we’re looking at:
£8000 over 5 years extra mortgage repayments (though this is from todays rates NOT what they’ll be tomorrow) 
£1000 rent (even though we probably wont be in it for 4 weeks if we manage to exchange when we had informally agreed - and yes I know it’s informal until we exchange)
£3000 savings on furniture (can’t buy until we exchange - lead times a joke etc and missing summer sales) 

Should we spell out the above to our vendor? Should we tell her we can’t get a new mortgage offer to add some pressure?

I know it’s a sellers market but we’ve been dragged through the ringer with this and I don’t think she’s aware of how much damage and costs she’s making us accrue for her crap solicitor and the fact she hasn’t chased anything or even tried to speed up the process, let alone the fact she’s sacked her solicitor at the final stages. 

I know she’s furious with the situation and it’s highly likely she will lose her new build if we back out, so I don’t want to be unnecessarily cruel, but our mortgage advisor and solicitor have both said we should fully spell out the costs we’re going to be spending if she doesn’t get it sorted as soon as possible. 

Thanks for any kind and helpful advice in advance! 

Ps. Developer wants us to exchange and complete asap, it’s not really them although they have still got one enquiry that should be resolved this week that we’re ok to exchange with and resolve after. 

K_S

@hpsauce86 Limited to the mortgage part of your post -

- as long as it's from another lender (and you minimise any risk of sunk costs by adding fees to loan and the lender offers a free valuation), in principle there's nothing stopping you from getting a 'backup' mortgage offer to secure a rate now, and leaving the current one as it is

- I'm assuming you've confirmed that there's no chance of extending the current offer at all?

anselld

This depends on the reason for delay.  If as you suggest it is just Solicitor incompetence then I am surprised the Developer has not already walked and remarketed.  It seems more likely that the new build is not actually finished.  If that is the case there is not much you can do except extend the mortgage.
If the new build is ready then there really is no reason why completion should not be done in under a month, even from a standing start.   If you are sure the new build is actually complete then I would be inclined to make an ultimatum to exchange and complete by end Aug or deal is off.

hpsauce86

K_S said:

@hpsauce86 Limited to the mortgage part of your post -

- as long as it's from another lender (and you minimise any risk of sunk costs by adding fees to loan and the lender offers a free valuation), in principle there's nothing stopping you from getting a 'backup' mortgage offer to secure a rate now, and leaving the current one as it is

- I'm assuming you've confirmed that there's no chance of extending the current offer at all?

Yep - our lovely brokers confirmed we’d have to reapply which will take another 4 weeks (NatWest). 

Thanks for the very helpful tip! 

hpsauce86

anselld said:

This depends on the reason for delay.  If as you suggest it is just Solicitor incompetence then I am surprised the Developer has not already walked and remarketed.  It seems more likely that the new build is not actually finished.  If that is the case there is not much you can do except extend the mortgage.
If the new build is ready then there really is no reason why completion should not be done in under a month, even from a standing start.   If you are sure the new build is actually complete then I would be inclined to make an ultimatum to exchange and complete by end Aug or deal is off.

It’s because one of the new build terraces was given access to all of them by mistake. It just needs a deed of variation which should be done by tomorrow, according to the developers solicitor. 

And yes it is done, everything besides her choice of flooring, which they won’t do till we exchange. 

K_S

hpsauce86 said:

K_S said:

@hpsauce86 Limited to the mortgage part of your post -

- as long as it's from another lender (and you minimise any risk of sunk costs by adding fees to loan and the lender offers a free valuation), in principle there's nothing stopping you from getting a 'backup' mortgage offer to secure a rate now, and leaving the current one as it is

- I'm assuming you've confirmed that there's no chance of extending the current offer at all?

Yep - our lovely brokers confirmed we’d have to reapply which will take another 4 weeks (NatWest). 

Thanks for the very helpful tip! 

@hpsauce86 Sorry to hear that. I'm assuming that means you've already used up the 1 month non-new build offer extension that NatWest offers.  

hpsauce86

K_S said:

hpsauce86 said:

K_S said:

@hpsauce86 Limited to the mortgage part of your post -

- as long as it's from another lender (and you minimise any risk of sunk costs by adding fees to loan and the lender offers a free valuation), in principle there's nothing stopping you from getting a 'backup' mortgage offer to secure a rate now, and leaving the current one as it is

- I'm assuming you've confirmed that there's no chance of extending the current offer at all?

Yep - our lovely brokers confirmed we’d have to reapply which will take another 4 weeks (NatWest). 

Thanks for the very helpful tip! 

@hpsauce86 Sorry to hear that. I'm assuming that means you've already used up the 1 month non-new build offer extension that NatWest offers.  

No - our broker said we’d have to get an entirely new mortgage when it expires (it lasted 6 months and expires 7th September) 

K_S

hpsauce86 said:

K_S said:

hpsauce86 said:

K_S said:

@hpsauce86 Limited to the mortgage part of your post -

- as long as it's from another lender (and you minimise any risk of sunk costs by adding fees to loan and the lender offers a free valuation), in principle there's nothing stopping you from getting a 'backup' mortgage offer to secure a rate now, and leaving the current one as it is

- I'm assuming you've confirmed that there's no chance of extending the current offer at all?

Yep - our lovely brokers confirmed we’d have to reapply which will take another 4 weeks (NatWest). 

Thanks for the very helpful tip! 

@hpsauce86 Sorry to hear that. I'm assuming that means you've already used up the 1 month non-new build offer extension that NatWest offers.  

No - our broker said we’d have to get an entirely new mortgage when it expires (it lasted 6 months and expires 7th September) 

@hpsauce86 I don't want to second guess your broker (or perhaps there's something else relevant in the background) but NatWest allows the broker to apply for a one-month extension (6 + 1) on non-new-build offers keeping the same product/rate. I last did it for a client 4-5 months ago, so unless their policy has changed in the meantime, it should be an option. Might want to drop a note to the broker to check.

https://www.intermediary.natwest.com/content/dam/natwest_com/Intermediary/PDFs/20210113NWIS1monthSRVFINAL.pdf
  

hpsauce86

K_S said:

hpsauce86 said:

K_S said:

hpsauce86 said:

K_S said:

@hpsauce86 Limited to the mortgage part of your post -

- as long as it's from another lender (and you minimise any risk of sunk costs by adding fees to loan and the lender offers a free valuation), in principle there's nothing stopping you from getting a 'backup' mortgage offer to secure a rate now, and leaving the current one as it is

- I'm assuming you've confirmed that there's no chance of extending the current offer at all?

Yep - our lovely brokers confirmed we’d have to reapply which will take another 4 weeks (NatWest). 

Thanks for the very helpful tip! 

@hpsauce86 Sorry to hear that. I'm assuming that means you've already used up the 1 month non-new build offer extension that NatWest offers.  

No - our broker said we’d have to get an entirely new mortgage when it expires (it lasted 6 months and expires 7th September) 

@hpsauce86 I don't want to second guess your broker (or perhaps there's something else relevant in the background) but NatWest allows the broker to apply for a one-month extension (6 + 1) on non-new-build offers keeping the same product/rate. I last did it for a client 4-5 months ago, so unless their policy has changed in the meantime, it should be an option. Might want to drop a note to the broker to check.

https://www.intermediary.natwest.com/content/dam/natwest_com/Intermediary/PDFs/20210113NWIS1monthSRVFINAL.pdf
  

Brilliant thank you! It’s with mortgage advice bureau but we’ve worked with the broker for as long as we’ve been looking. Odd that he didn’t mention that we could get the extra month! I’ll ask him again today. 

hpsauce86

@K_S just spoke to NatWest and you are quite right! We can extend it for a week or 4 weeks after the 8th August. Huge relief! 

Now next question 😅 - should we tell the vendor or keep our cards close to our chest? We want her to keep pushing it through as it’s been stalemate for months and months, and we are almost there (I’m not convinced we will even need the extension but we’ll get it for added cushion). I don’t want her to relax about it just yet! 

hpsauce86

Also don’t want her to remarket the property because she’s worried!