Owning your own home

We were about £500 for conveyancing btw @Cupcakes

I think I'll get another quote, yeah.

As far as I can tell the LTBB is the stamp duty, it's just collected by the conveyancer. Or maybe not, but the agent isn't taking a cut. I think.

Our stamp was collected by the conveyancer, not sure if essential, just convenient having them do all the forms and handling all the monies.

Good to know. Sounds par for the course then.

The market is fairly rapid turnover of nice properties at the moment but there are a few good ones in my price range that have just appeared. I've a weekend of viewings booked in. Fingers crossed!

We had exactly the same experience when we moved in. There are clauses in the contract about how you're meant to leave the property. I was advised by my solicitor to get in touch with the agent and get them to deal with it. Unfortunately at this point it's all exchanged so might be hard to push them. Still it's worth emailing the agent as you will incur costs in getting rid of all that stuff.

I feel your pain dude and it really sucks.

You can always post him a box filled with the pissed soaked carpet as a memento.

Yeah. Take it all round and dump it on his new front garden.

Total change of tac and have just offered on a new(ish) townhouse in Kentfordshire that needs nothing doing. Few too many Mini Coopers in the neighbourhod for my liking but can't argue against the view from the kitchen across the creek to a very inviting clapboard pub... won't take anything off the mortgage but then again, neither will staying put. He who dares rodders.

This would be my approach.

Measure kitchen > Book kitchen design appointment with Homebase/Wickes/Magnet/whatever > Buy exactly the same units from DIY-kitchens.com instead.

Just refuse to forward their mail on.

How much cheaper is it than B&Q or IKEA?

I'd stab them in the faces

Sorry thought I was still in the Katie Hopkins thread

Me again, sorry.

So, mortgages. I have approval in principle for enough to buy what I want. But I expect it to go for 10-20k over the "market value" given in the home report. I've heard anecdotally that banks won't lend more than the valuation. Is this true, and if so would I have to make the difference up with cash? That could be crippling as it'd eat my deposit.

Thats right, a lender wouldn't lend more than current value (even with rising prices), due to the risk of loss to the lender in the event of repossession and then sale of their security.

Okay - but does that mean they will lend the full price, or they will lend price less deposit?

E.g. flat valued at x, deposit is y, does the bank lend x, or do they lend (x-y)

I can see both making sense. But I guess they lend x.

They lend what you can afford to repay.
Pre 2007 some might lend x. Not any more.

Find out what they can lend you, work out how much deposit you have or will have when you expect to exchange, add them both together and there you have your house price range.

Sure, agreed. What I mean is, what they'll lend me plus my deposit is higher than the market value of what I want to buy. So I want to offer x+deposit, where I have a 85% LTV. Should be fine right?

They lend x-y. I.e. If the house is 100k and you have 20k deposit, they lend 80k.

I guess if the house is valued in the home buyers report at 100k, but you have agreed to pay 110k, they might still only lend you 80k if you want an interest rate commensurate with LTV of 20%.

In England we don't have home buyers reports, and the bank sores there own independent valuation to establish the value. Can you ask if the bank can do a valuation to support the higher value than ligand in the home buyers pack?

Yeah I guess I can get my own valuation. But surely in the example you gave, they will lend 90k if the buyer has agreed to pay 110 and has a deposit of 20? Its just that the LTV changes. The bank could still recoup the loaned money by selling at "market value" in the case of a default, because they have lent less than the market value?

Assuming of course that the LTV still checks out for the mortgage in question.

The alternative would be buyers having to compete using cash, even if their salary was massive (example: loan required is 2x annual salary, but cash reserves are small, so buyer loses out to person who needs 4x salary mortgage but has more cash available)

I'm probably making a hash of this question :/

I think the confusion here may be assuming that the "asking price" is the same as a market value.

If a house sells for more than the estate agent lists it for, that does not mean that the lender will not agree that the price paid is a market value.

Five to ten percent over the asking price will be fine. If mister big balls pays twice the asking price then they may not agree.

I'm speculating a little, so please don't take this as gospel. It would be useful to speak directly to your lender or broker to confirm.

I guess that they could lend upto 90% or 95% of the stated market value, but the interest rate would then become less favourable, as the higher the LTV the worse the rate.

So to follow through with an example:

The stated value of the house is 100k, but you agree to pay 110k. The lender loans 90k, at 90% LTV and corresponding interest and you fund the gap of 20k via your deposit.

If you want to get the benefit of a 20% LTV, you would need to get the bank to accept the higher value. You would then be loaned 88k, fund 22k, but have the benefit of a lower interest rate.

This is all theoretical - you should speak to a broker. You will find a good one on line with a little research. I used London and County and can recommend but I don't know if they operate in Scotland.

The issue is the LTV.

Example:

Market value (valuation): £500k
Deposit: £50k
LTV: 10%

If the bidding war ends at £550k, the bank will still only offer you £450k. If they lent you £500k, the LTV would be 100% as the valuation would still be £500k.

They wouldn't do that.

The only way it could work is if you had a very high LTV already (eg 40%) and you could raise the additional capital by changing the LTV to 20%.

Excellent, that's a much better way of wording it than i had. Cheers