Owning your own home

Sounds more legit.
Pie off the £2.5 chancer.

Good luck with it all.

He's a charlatan by the sounds of it. Ask him for the draft legal contract for the service he intends to provide. I'd wager £2.5k he doesn't have such a document.

Sounds more legit.
Pie off the £2.5 chancer.

Good luck with it all.

Cheers, I'll give you a shout if the 1st guy causes any issues, appreciate the offer of your old man's assistance.

I'd pie off a lot of people for £2.5k.

He's a charlatan by the sounds of it. Ask him for the draft legal contract for the service he intends to provide. I'd wager £2.5k he doesn't have such a document.

Don't worry, I just needed confirmation from you fine people on here

I'd still ask, it would waste quite a bit of his time and money.

On a more related note, credit agencies have finally all updated properly so hopefully a mortgage for the wife will be sorted soon. Don't take any of the bullshit off banks/credit cards etc. about needing 6 weeks or whatever to update your score, of all the things we needed sorting they all fucked up at the first attempt, sometimes more, each one saying it'll be another wait to push the score update through. Every single one was able to do it in 24/48 hours after a bit if complaining, even NatWest who were adamant they could only do it on a certain day of the month.

^^ #rep

We used an IFA in sunny Sidcup and he was grand, and took his payment from the lender. No-one I know personally has paid for such advice themselves.

We finally got the final contracts through to sign, so I've hit another period of absolutely bricking it. To add to that, our mortgage involves my folks depositing some money in a savings account for the term of the mortgage, and no-one at Barclays or our conveyancer actually seems to know how it should work, so I have to chase another solicitor to provide my folks with a letter saying they were advised well.

One solicitor was bad enough, chasing two is beyond me. Terrified of setting an exchange date without knowing all our ducks are in a row.

Spoke to the Estate Agent, turns out the old dear we are buying from didn't know what the box meant when she ticked it to say the sale of her house wan't dependent on a related purchase. Plus, as they are selling/we are buying through the Catford Branch and they are buying through the Orpington Branch (of the same Estate Agents), there has been little to no communication between the two, hence not finding out the vendor of the other place isn't based in the UK.

The Catford Estate Agent's "Progressor" has apparently demanded to speak to one of the senior dudes at the Orpington branch. There seems to be an issue with the foreign vendor's UK solicitor not having power of attorney to sell the house. Which sounds like a load of bollocks to me, so far down the line.

Phone him back and say that you accept the offer and your lawyer will be in contact to discuss the terms on these garantees

Our IFA said he'd take the fee from the lender but if the best deal was one he couldn't arrange, he'd charge £400 to tell us what it was.

He told us the best deal was one he couldn't arrange, they (the post office) were crap and 2 months later he hasn't sent an invoice. We went with YBS in the end anyway

I've dealt with London & Country a few times who seem decent. Again, no fees.

My advice for mortgages is to read money saving expert, including their mortgage guide PDF. Then check the best rates for your criteria, then consider if you think you'd benefit from a broker. My broker couldn't beat the 2 year rate I was offered directly by Nationwide. However, they managed to get a 3 year at 1.8% which I went for instead as using an online mortgage calculator gave me an idea of how much I might be able to save (this always requires speculation though).

I received the replies to enquiries earlier this afternoon and I will be sending the contract out for you to sign tomorrow.

Huzzah. What's still standing between us and the house now? Just setting the date for completion?

I think we've settled on a Woolwich 5 year fixed, anyone got any horror stories to ward me off a Woolwich mortgage?

no experience of woolwich but I have recently dealt with the yorkshire building society for the transfer of a mortgage I have and I cannot recommend them enough. The entire process from application to approval was done in a little over 2 weeks. fantastic service without any stupid questions to hold the process up.

Yup....
+1 over here for the Yorkshire Building Society.

My most recent mortgage is with the Woolich. They were about average. Have had no surprises.
Took a while to get the survey done, but that was back in May when everything was going mental.

Bollocks, the day after getting all the credit checks and stuff sorted the seller has pulled out due to family illness and no longer moving down south. It was a nice house and only a 30 second walk from this one, 30 seconds closer to the shop that is currently 35 seconds away.

After putting our shared ownership property on the market back in May we finally exchanged yesterday. It has been a testing time with the world's most impatient vendor on our purchase.

We viewed over 30 properties, were outbid on 4 (can't believe people can actually afford to bid up to 30k in excess of the properties asking price). Had one down valuation of 75k and were shown what was essentially a garage in Forest Hill with an asking price of 315k.

Selling shared has been slow and painful at times but we now have a lovely flat with a garden which was all we wanted at the start.

I am not in a hurry to move ever again.

http://www.zoopla.co.uk/for-sale/details/34289854#0Q4dR5JRQ8R4oDRe.97

This is the one I mentioned, price dropped to 275k situated at the bottom of someones garden in a row of garages, with no rights of access as far as I could tell.

RE broker, used these guys and would definitely recommend them, they're whole of market and take their fee from the lender. They showed admirable patience answering hundreds of questions (normally requesting figures for a different 'scenario' re tweaking the variables of purchase price/deposit/LTV etc) and are nice guys. Other friends have used them too and have been impressed, plus they came recommended to us...

http://www.scalesporter.co.uk/

Finally just completed after some spectacular last minute shenanigans from the sellers, annoyingly don't get the keys until 3pm tomorrow though....

Just to add to the positive reviews of YBS - we went with them after the Post Office were momumentally crap (see http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5007756 for the tales of what happens when a mortgage company gets to the top of the best buy tables and can't cope with the flood of applications). YBS have been decent - plenty of questions, some a bit weird, but they were always decent to deal with and it was a straightforward process. See my previous posts about the questions they asked - the one about the £10 transaction on my statement was particularly special, as was the difference in requirements depending on whether you sent paper statements or online banking PDFs.
Note that at least with our deal, we can overpay and then choose to underpay by the same amount in future so it's a bit like a savings account. Also, interest is calculated daily, which is what you want.