Mortgage/Relocation/Commuting Advice

jb0712

Hi there - apologies if this post is slightly long and hopefully it makes sense but I was hoping for some advice:

To describe our situation - I am currently living with my partner in our owned 2 bedroom house in Reading and we are hoping to upsize. I work in a nearby town where I usually go into the office once or twice a week and work remotely the rest of the time, and she is a teacher. We have a fixed mortgage rate with Santander that is due to end on the 2nd November, when it will switch over to a variable rate (it is due to double if we do nothing, but that is a moot point).

We are looking to put our house on sale in the next two weeks and sell up - we theoretically don't need to rush with buying because we are fortunate to have another property nearby to stay in temporarily while we look to buy again(long story short, my grandad's old house which my parents are planning to eventually move into to downsize).

We are using a financial/mortgage adviser (who have used to remortgage in the past) who says it shouldn't make a difference if we sell and then reapply for a new mortgage, rather than transfer the existing mortgage over to a new property which is fine.

We are looking to relocate to another part of the UK as we have found it is cheaper and having visited a few times really like it and have identified areas where we'd look. It is not so far away that I am not prepared to commute once a week (about a 1h30m drive), however my partner won't be able to and will be looking for teaching jobs in the new area.

Here is where we are finding we might have an issue - our adviser is saying that the banks will not give us a mortgage if it is deemed too far to commute and we'd need to rent in the other area for 3/6 months to provide payslips that prove we can still pay the mortgage with an address in a 'commutable' distance.

We are both not entirely convinced this is the case as we spoke to Santander to ask about it and they said as long as you are paying it shouldn't matter where your address is, so this is where it'd be great to know if anybody else has experience of relocating in this context.

With teaching, it is not possible to just leave or jump between jobs in different schools any time of the year, you have certain windows throughout the year where you can apply for other jobs which means you'd leave at the end of a term and start in the new place the next term, which complicates things.

TL;DR I guess my question after all this context is whether it is feasible, in anyone's experience, for us to sell our house ASAP, live in the other property here, my partner finds a new job to start in January/April, and then we buy/move in to a new house in a new area when we are able to?

Flugelhorn

I think this advice

"- our adviser is saying that the banks will not give us a mortgage if it is deemed too far to commute and we'd need to rent in the other area for 3/6 months to provide payslips that prove we can still pay the mortgage with an address in a 'commutable' distance." 

is a bit crackers - surely lots of people get a job then buy in the new area 

jb0712

I think this advice

"- our adviser is saying that the banks will not give us a mortgage if it is deemed too far to commute and we'd need to rent in the other area for 3/6 months to provide payslips that prove we can still pay the mortgage with an address in a 'commutable' distance." 

is a bit crackers - surely lots of people get a job then buy in the new area 

This is what we thought - we are going to speak to some more banks directly to ask about this, my assumption was that they wouldn't care how the money is being paid, as long as it is being paid (obviously within the constraints of the money being legally obtained)?

amnblog

Your Adviser if correct. If a Teaching job is not in commuting range and you want to include the Teaching income for affordability, a Lender will expect to see an agreed solution in terms of a local job offer.

jb0712

Your Adviser if correct. If a Teaching job is not in commuting range and you want to include the Teaching income for affordability, a Lender will expect to see an agreed solution in terms of a local job offer.

Thanks - that is a slight difference with a job offer being required rather than historical payslips, and something we could do because we wouldn't move without having the job lined up, i.e. an offer, first anyway. This isn't something he mentioned so I will likely need to further question about this. We have also seen about using a guarantor to help with the application (we have a 100% payment history anyway, but just as a formality)?

amnblog

Guarantor - forget it.

Job Offer- bear in mind that different lenders have different policies when changing jobs.

Some will work on a job offer, some will not agree the mortgage until the new role has begun, some want to see the first payslip, some the first payment in the bank.

A situation when a good mortgage Broker is key.

Slick88

Have you considered speaking to the Teachers Building Society? We previously spoke to them when we were both teaching and looking at mortgages, they maybe more sympathetic to the need to relocate? 

Also, your partner could request to leave at anytime if they speak to the Headteacher and explain that you are relocating. Teachers with military partners tend to have to do this when they are redeployed. 

This would then give your partner more flexibility to approach schools or agencies in the area you are going to move to.

Just a thought.