Urgent Advice Please

liss90

Hi all,
I need some urgent advice please!
We are buying or were buying a house. Had survey done, searches etc done also. But we only recieved our formal mortgage offer on friday morning and we are not happy with it. We used the vendors estate agents financial advisor and were going to use Northern Rock for a mortgage because we are having to get a 100% loan. Anyway we had a loan agreed in principle with Yorkshire before this but being a little green we went with the financial advisor's advice.
We have decided that we would rather go with Yorkshire because of Northern Rocks tie - ins after two years at a fixed rate.
The vendors wanted to move this friday and we only told this last week!
We can't do this and have told them it will be another 2-3 weeks as we are changing lendor and have to give our notice in on our rented place. This has to be done in writing on the 1st of any month.
The vendors are now putting the house back on the market and the estate agent has said they are pulling out of any sale with us unless we complete by next friday.
We are rushing this through with Yorkshire and have given them our survey as well as having a appointment with them tommorow morning.
Should we just say goodbye to the house or bust a gut running around getting another mortgage? Is it normal not to be given any notice or asked when a good time for you would be and work around that?
Any advice please?

Happy_saver_4

First of all the vendors are being impossibly unreasonable and their EA should have told them so. Normally your Sol would not be able to complete one week after you recieve your mortgage offer; in any case.

First of all I suggest you speak to your sols and obtain their opinion on a realistic time schedule for your completion and ask them to discuss the situation with the vendor's sols and discover why this undue pressure.

Secondly - stay cool. It seems you are far more advanced than any other purchaser for this property. Therefore if you just keep things moving along at a good speed. You'll beat any new purchaser whose yet got to make an offer.

I doubt if the vendor wishes to throw your offer 'out of the window' as offers are not that easy to get at the moment. Therefore the contract with your sol will not be withdrawn. That means if any other purchaser appears you will know and can take any suitable action. This is because the vendors sols must notify your sols if he sends out another contract. Also, any other potential purchaser may withdraw any offer once their sol is told that there's a contract out already.

So, just keep cool, take your sols advice and take the mortgage that suits you.

liss90

The reason for the pressure is they got the 30th into their heads from only I can guess the esate agents. They booked removal people and she packed in her job and has a new one starting the 3rd of October in the area they have chosen.
I cant believe that people will do that before exchanging contracts. We did not even give our notice in before recieving our formal mortgage offer!
We have children and have had to move four times in four years and have written an email telling vendors that financial security is vey important and we could not possibly go with a mortgage which may of made it very difficult for us 2yrs down the line.
We are very sorry for the disruption but we are not being rushed into an impossible financial situation with children to care for.

Happy_saver_4

Hi Liss,

You're 110% right - just stay with it, look after the family and good luck with the move.

Happy

meanmachine_2

The rule is never get a mortgage through the EAs adviser, and secondly, for vendors, never pack eveything in and book a removal van until you've exchanged.

You've done nothing wrong, so play it cool.

hazeyj

I would be concerned if my buyers changed mortgage provider half way through negotiations. Ask the EA if you can speak to the sellers direct to reassure them and to sort things out. Goodluck.

Conrad

liss90 wrote:

Hi all,
I need some urgent advice please!
We are buying or were buying a house. Had survey done, searches etc done also. But we only recieved our formal mortgage offer on friday morning and we are not happy with it. We used the vendors estate agents financial advisor and were going to use Northern Rock for a mortgage because we are having to get a 100% loan. Anyway we had a loan agreed in principle with Yorkshire before this but being a little green we went with the financial advisor's advice.
We have decided that we would rather go with Yorkshire because of Northern Rocks tie - ins after two years at a fixed rate.
The vendors wanted to move this friday and we only told this last week!
We can't do this and have told them it will be another 2-3 weeks as we are changing lendor and have to give our notice in on our rented place. This has to be done in writing on the 1st of any month.
The vendors are now putting the house back on the market and the estate agent has said they are pulling out of any sale with us unless we complete by next friday.
We are rushing this through with Yorkshire and have given them our survey as well as having a appointment with them tommorow morning.
Should we just say goodbye to the house or bust a gut running around getting another mortgage? Is it normal not to be given any notice or asked when a good time for you would be and work around that?
Any advice please?

Ive never come accross a client wanting to change mortgage at such a late stage. You bare all the hallmarks of timewasters. No one changes lender at this stage UNLESS THEY HAVE NO CHOICE.

The majority of people would be emmotionally attatched to thier new potential home, yet you spookily dont seem concerned.

You would have been given an exact copy of the mortgage offer (called a key features illustration) when you applied for N Rock, so why change now?

Either you are not telling us the full story, or you are a little barmy / disorganised.

Also, N Rock offer 100% mortgages without a tie - in, you could easily switch at no cost. It may mean a new application but as the case is already agreed it would take about 48 hours to offer.

If you were buying my home Id tell you to forget it. Yorkshire tend to be a very slow and cumbersome old fashioned lender with ultra strict underwriting plus you will incur more costs and loose fees paid to N Rock.

Lastly, how would you feel if you were in the vendors position and out of the blue you received a phone call informing you your buyer wanted to change mortgage provider? Perhaps this will happen to you one day, and then you will see how unsettling such a bizzare / off the wall event can be. It would make you distrust your buyer.

To be frank, Ive always found that people who move home a lot (4 x in 4 years) tend to be a little extreme in their behavior. It can be an indication that landlords find you difficult or that you are disorganised and impulsive. Most people simply havent got the time to keep moving home (unless they are single without kids).

Lenders credit scoring deducts many points for applicants that move a lot, as statists unequivocally show that such people tend to be a little impulsive, unstable & therefore more likely to develop arrears.

Sorry to be so frank, but this needs to be said. What you do has a direct impact on others around you.

liss90

Well where do I start!
I am not disorganised - We only recieved our formal mortgage offer on Friday.
It has taken Northern Rock over 2 weeks to produce this because of delays on their behalf not ours.
We are taking on a 100% loan. The way that works with Northern Rock is that a % is secured mortgage the rest is a unsecured loan. We have a outstanding loan of 7000. The EA financial advisor persuaded us to combine the mortgage of £116,000 and £7000 together. And yes I mean persuaded and pushed and harassed. If anyone has been in this situation they will know what I mean.
Now we will be on a rate of 5.89 for these two loans. In two years when we come to the end of our fixed rate we will have a choice of changing to another provider. This will be with the hope that the property has gone up in value to £123,000 which is a gamble.
Or we could take just the mortgage with us which is £113,000 and keep the rest with Northern Rock. If we did this they would push the loan rate up by 5% on top of their varible rate of over 6% bring it up to a total of around 11.29.
Or if we chose to remortgage with Northern Rock and not go with a variable rate which is what they offer you at the end of the fixed period they still add 5% to the unsecured amount of the mortgage.
Therefore we a slightly worried about being in that position.

Next it was not in the key facts as they don't have to put it in there as it is not part of the mortgage. And before you ask even if we had not added that loan on all Northern Rock 100% loans have a secured and unsecured part regardless of whether you take out extra money on top of the loan.

Oh and yes I did ask about all this before applying for this loan but the financial advisor told me nothing about this. He even phoned this week when hearing we may not go through with this and said there is no such clause or what ever you want to call it.
I read it out to him and he said it must be new as he had never heard of it and that they do not have to put in the key facts as it is not the secured part of the mortgage.
I phoned Northern Rock the next day and they said it had always been part of the loan and that he should of advised us of it.
So we are not best pleased at the moment and feel that he may of been trying to take advantage of us somewhat for a fee.
Finally yes we have emailed vendors and apologised to them for delay. They have put house back on market. We are not timewasting we are cautious and careful. We have children who have had enough disruption in their lives.
My partners ex wife drowned four years ago and his children were living in France. Within three days they had lost their home and had moved to the U.K.
Since living here we have moved four times. Therefore when we finally buy a home or rather hopefully this home we want a family home for years to come and be within our budget.
Oh and finally, finally, I am attached to my children and their security not bricks and mortar. Anyway I thought the golden rule was not to get involved with emotionally at least until exchange!

Just a little edit. I guess I am going to have to explain why we have moved so much .....
First move - time at property- 7 yrs. Flat too small to accomodate children.
Second move - time at property - 2yrs - I had a baby house too small again.
Third move - time at property - 18mths - Landlord sold property.
Fourth move - Landlords contract finished earlier than expected in China and he needed property back.

Credit scoring excellent. No problems. Have been told we have we can borrow up to £140,000 but we would rather not.
Always had glowing refs and no credit problems whatsoever.
And we will have no fees payable to Northern Rock as we have not commited to anything.
Just because someone has moved a lot does not mean they are difficult, its more an indication of what the reality of renting rather than buying is.

cattie

liss, I feel unfair comments were made about your situation in one of these posts & that there was no need to feel you had to justify yourself & the reason you have had to move so often over the past few years.

I just want to say that I really do hope this house purchase does in fact all go through ok & that you & your family will have many happy years in your new home.

Doozergirl

Conrad wrote:

Sorry to be so frank, but this needs to be said.

You reckon? You make an awful lot of assumptions, even down the character of the OP. I think there were a lot of things that didn't NEED to be said at all. How can someone be a timewaster if they've gone to the effort of posting on a board asking for advice?

Being bullied or made to feel obliged to take out financial products is an especially difficult situation for a FTB. At least they've finally managed to take a stand. This site is about money saving after all, and if the op thinks they can get a better deal then they are absolutely right to do so.

Of course it's an inconvenience to the vendor, but if the exchange date was so important to them perhaps their solicitor could have made a bigger priority of informing liss90 of the date? Or perhaps the vendor might be able to empathise a little more if they realised a big chunk of the problem was caused by their EA's sales tactics?

As for the house, liss90, you don't need to justify yourself at all. happy_savers original advice is very good; you are further down the line than anyone else that wants to offer on the property, regardless of delays. The vendor would be 'disorganised', 'impulsive' and 'unstable' to drop a buyer at this stage.

travel_freak

Dear Liss90,

I felt compelled to post. I have used this site for a while and, whilst I know it sounds corny, you do feel as though you are amongst decent fellow users who for the most part treat other users respectfully. Most people post because they receive help/advice from others themselves and would like to feel that they can be of some assistance to others. Nevertheless, some of the posts never cease to amaze me - Conrad's being a prime example. I find his post to be very offensive and without any possible justification. I sincerely hope he reads your full reply and makes an apology to you.

Like others, I don't think you should feel that you have to justify/defend yourself in any way. I have experience of sellers and estate agents trying to employ these shock tactics and impose unrealistic timescales when, in reality, they both know that it is unlikely that a "new" buyer will be able to move more quickly than you at this stage. It sounds to me as though you have acted honestly and fairly throughout and you can hold your head up high which is more than can be said for some.

Per the advice given above, I would remain calm and ask your solicitor to liaise with the vendors' solicitors to try to find out where the land really lies. In my experience, some disreputable estate agents (and no I am not tarring every estate agent with the same brush) like nothing better than to whip up frenzies. Clearly you don't want to waste further expenses trying to sort things out with Yorkshire if the rug is going to be pulled from beneath your feet. If your solicitor can reassure the vendors' solicitor that you are progressing as quickly as you can and maybe give them a likely timeframe when you will be ready to exchange, then hopefully the vendors can be persuaded to withdraw the property from the market again and give you some exclusivity which will give you comfort to proceed incurring more fees.

I normally try not to get involved in these types of "disagreements" but, as I say, I felt compelled to write.

May I wish you the very best of luck. I am a believer in fate and perhaps if things don't fall into place then this wasn't meant to be.

Regards