NatWest Mortgage

GTR_King

(Made post in other house buying forms but would try here to see as it more related to mortgage)

So I am currently renting a lovely flat (Suffolk Ipswich) of family member (mum) we have decided it best I buy the flat off her which I want to do (buying half) other half being gifted to me to Help me out! 

we started the process last November with mortgage advisors! The flat was valued (for example) 125k-140k offer was accepted for £120k with NatWest accepting me for a mortgage of 63k (27 Years) (mum gifting me the rest). We the started the process just before Xmas with solicitors been very good! 

Mortgage offer runs out 2nd June!

All was going well (getting close to completion) till Wednesday,

when my solicitations says NatWest will only let me complete and have a mortgage if the freeholders can guarantee the ground rent stays at £250 or below during the lease term and they are satisfied with why the property is being sold undervalued.

1.The method of increasing rent is unusual.  I have to report all onerous methods of increasing the ground rent to the Lender.  Here the Landlord can increase the ground rent every 25 years by a ratio of capital value x .12%.  Conceivably this could end up being a considerable amount payable in a few years time

2. Property bought 2007 for £140k 2008/2009 it was given back to mortgage lender as people couldn’t pay mortgage which mum then in 2008/2009 bought it for about £78k off mortgage lenders 2008/2009 as a repossessed property (not on land registry so mum has given all info to her solicitor about the property purchase!

What the likely hood we can complete soon?

why is NatWest at this late stage asking these questions?

I don’t want this to fall though

ACG

Why has it taken nearly 6 months? This should have flown through. Or at least flown through to this stage. 
Its not Natwest who are asking for this now, its the solicitors who have only just clocked natwests criteria. 


Other lenders have similar criteria, we submitted a case recently where the ground rent could go over £250 during the lease term. We picked up on this prior to submission to Virgin Money but they had something similar to natwest by the sounds of it. We did it get it through with a different lender. Rates were a touch higher though. 

GTR_King

I have no clue why this has just been bought up! 

My solicitor says the ground rent & concern should be ok, so hoping the freeholder will
let me keep the ground rent at £250 per year or less via Deed of variation (DOV) for free, or they could charge us thousands which I can’t afford at all

it’s been 4 months since solicitor started work on my flat purchase once we had given them all the info