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Mortgage broker - a necessity?

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  • PM me. I am a IFA & a regulated mortgage broker. I don't charge fees & will usually take my commission from the fee paid by the lender. I have access to the whole market.
    I'm in Swanley if that helps......although currently working from home & doing most things by telephone & email.

    PM me if interested.
    I'm gonna want quite a discount given some comments you made about our choice of area on this thread! ;)

     https://forum.charltonlife.com/discussion/comment/3891053#Comment_3891053
    No problem. You can have 100% discount if you like.......I don't charge !!! 😆
  • clb74 said:
    Fumbluff said:
    Don’t buy a flat, or anything with “service charges”
    Whats your advice if all i can afford is a flat?
    Look harder
  • edited July 2020
    Fumbluff said:
    clb74 said:
    Fumbluff said:
    Don’t buy a flat, or anything with “service charges”
    Whats your advice if all i can afford is a flat?
    Look harder

    Or how about this;

  • Fumbluff said:
    clb74 said:
    Fumbluff said:
    Don’t buy a flat, or anything with “service charges”
    Whats your advice if all i can afford is a flat?
    Look harder
    Your right 
    I put in £350000 for a house in Beckenham 
    A photo appeared of a wendy house.
  • PM me. I am a IFA & a regulated mortgage broker. I don't charge fees & will usually take my commission from the fee paid by the lender. I have access to the whole market.
    I'm in Swanley if that helps......although currently working from home & doing most things by telephone & email.

    PM me if interested.
    I'm gonna want quite a discount given some comments you made about our choice of area on this thread! ;)

     https://forum.charltonlife.com/discussion/comment/3891053#Comment_3891053
    No problem. You can have 100% discount if you like.......I don't charge !!! 😆

    I think Canters may have been angling for you to pay him for the privilege.
  • clb74 said:
    Fumbluff said:
    clb74 said:
    Fumbluff said:
    Don’t buy a flat, or anything with “service charges”
    Whats your advice if all i can afford is a flat?
    Look harder
    Your right 
    I put in £350000 for a house in Beckenham 
    A photo appeared of a wendy house.
    Does it have to be Beckenham? If so a flat is all you are likely to find, you really need to be at 400k or get one of the small 1 bed houses. Either that or push into Norwood or Downham or further a field.

    You may just scrape one on Lee/Grove Park, otherwise Eltham/New Eltham, Sidcup etc?
  • @golfaddick What are your thoughts on shared ownership and how easy is it to get a mortgage? It’s a way to get back onto the housing ladder. It seems the current Covid situation is making it harder to get a mortgage though.
  • SX_Addick said:
    @golfaddick What are your thoughts on shared ownership and how easy is it to get a mortgage? It’s a way to get back onto the housing ladder. It seems the current Covid situation is making it harder to get a mortgage though.
    Shared Ownership is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

    Someone I know caught a nasty financial cold through it.
  • SX_Addick said:
    @golfaddick What are your thoughts on shared ownership and how easy is it to get a mortgage? It’s a way to get back onto the housing ladder. It seems the current Covid situation is making it harder to get a mortgage though.
    Do you mean shared ownership with a Housing Association or with a Help to Buy ? Personally I dont like either but I understand that for some people it's the only realistic way that they can buy, especially in London. I will counter that by saying  I dont have much experience with either (esp HA's) but I can see problems brewing with Help to Buy's now coming to the end of their 5 year period & borrowers finding it hard to pay back the Government's portion. As you say, not easy with Covid making higher LTV's harder to get & with people being furloughed or made redundant.


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  • My daughter is looking at a property development in Essex (Home Group), offering a 25% share. She’s being pushed into a financial assessment with a broker, though presumably won’t have to take a mortgage with them. The problem is that there may not be many mortgage providers offering loans unless you have a 20% deposit. 

    It’s not an ideal situation, but this may offer her a way back into the housing market following a failed relationship. 
  • SX_Addick said:
    My daughter is looking at a property development in Essex (Home Group), offering a 25% share. She’s being pushed into a financial assessment with a broker, though presumably won’t have to take a mortgage with them. The problem is that there may not be many mortgage providers offering loans unless you have a 20% deposit. 

    It’s not an ideal situation, but this may offer her a way back into the housing market following a failed relationship. 
    Yes, perfectly understandable. However, I have had clients look into this route only to try different avenues to raise the deposit themselves. I've seen parents use their savings (Barclays do a Springboard mortgage where parents savings are "used" as a deposit but not directly given to their offspring) & I helped a client last year remortgage to raise equity to give her daughter a bigger deposit. Obviously these avenues are not always open to someone & they have to look at shared ownership or Help to Buy.
  • Thanks for your comments. Don’t want to block up this thread, we can fund my daughter’s 10% deposit but seems like it might need 20% to access a mortgage. I know little about shared ownership and any strings attached to the mortgages. Could do with understanding the pitfalls @LenGlover
  • SX_Addick said:
    Thanks for your comments. Don’t want to block up this thread, we can fund my daughter’s 10% deposit but seems like it might need 20% to access a mortgage. I know little about shared ownership and any strings attached to the mortgages. Could do with understanding the pitfalls @LenGlover

    Maybe a 10% deposit, 10% Help to Buy and an 80% LTV mortgage? It restricts the equity you have to give up when selling to 10% and reduces the 'shock' when in 5 years you have to start paying the H2B back.

    Just a thought.
  • The deposit should only be for the share she is buying, at least it used to be, it wouldn't be on the full amount.

    Share ownership is perfectly fine, you can staircase up and buy the remainder over time, pay the full stamp duty now though (i.e. nothing!) to secure that for the future.
  • Thanks for the comments and advice. Will look into the H2B, though hoping to find a decent mortgage that requires ‘only’ 10%. Yes, it is 10% of her share. The stamp duty holiday is a good opportunity to ‘pay’ it all now. Thanks again. 
  • edited July 2020
    SX_Addick said:
    Thanks for your comments. Don’t want to block up this thread, we can fund my daughter’s 10% deposit but seems like it might need 20% to access a mortgage. I know little about shared ownership and any strings attached to the mortgages. Could do with understanding the pitfalls @LenGlover
    In essence from what I understand, although I wasn't directly involved, small print in that there were minimum terms you had to stay, limitations and timescales on how much or how little you could 'buy' as part of your 'staircasing' (which from what I can see means changing the ratio you rent and buy) and if you needed to move for any reason, thus breaching those conditions, you were heavily penalised.

    The circumstances of the person I know changed suddenly and dramatically and all this hidden stuff bit her very hard on the arse in summary.
  • edited July 2020
    My first place was shared ownership. As someone has mentioned the deposit is only required for your share of the property. Financial assessments are standard with the housing assoc but you’ll obviously need to go through the same crap with mortgage company. A lot of mortgage companies won’t provide a mortgage unless you can staircase up to 100% of the property but there are plenty who do not have that restriction. Nationwide being one of them. Biggest issue I found was when it came to selling the property. You’re basically in the hands of the housing assoc for a while until you market through normal ways and your target buyers are also those who want to get on the ladder so expect sales to fall through due to money issues. Also worth remembering the service charges you pay are not fixed, so expect that to go up each year! Any changes made to the property have to be approved by them, general decorating is fine though.

    Feel free to drop me a PM if you got any other Qs @SX_Addick
  • I don’t know if it’s still the case but shared ownership properties remain shared ownership, if you sell, the HA retains their share which limits who you can sell to
  • cafcpolo said:
    My first place was shared ownership. As someone has mentioned the deposit is only required for your share of the property. Financial assessments are standard with the housing assoc but you’ll obviously need to go through the same crap with mortgage company. A lot of mortgage companies won’t provide a mortgage unless you can staircase up to 100% of the property but there are plenty who do not have that restriction. Nationwide being one of them. Biggest issue I found was when it came to selling the property. You’re basically in the hands of the housing assoc for a while until you market through normal ways and your target buyers are also those who want to get on the ladder so expect sales to fall through due to money issues. Also worth remembering the service charges you pay are not fixed, so expect that to go up each year! Any changes made to the property have to be approved by them, general decorating is fine though.

    Feel free to drop me a PM if you got any other Qs @SX_Addick
    Shared ownership is great until you come to sell. My wife had murders selling hers, basically because L and Q don’t give a shit. Personally, I would caution anyone considering this way of getting on the property ladder. 
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  • I don’t know if it’s still the case but shared ownership properties remain shared ownership, if you sell, the HA retains their share which limits who you can sell to
    Depends on the HA. Mine for example, said if they don’t sell it for me within four weeks then I can go to market as shared ownership or full price.
  • LenGlover said:
    SX_Addick said:
    Thanks for your comments. Don’t want to block up this thread, we can fund my daughter’s 10% deposit but seems like it might need 20% to access a mortgage. I know little about shared ownership and any strings attached to the mortgages. Could do with understanding the pitfalls @LenGlover
    In essence from what I understand, although I wasn't directly involved, small print in that there were minimum terms you had to stay, limitations and timescales on how much or how little you could 'buy' as part of your 'staircasing' (which from what I can see means changing the ratio you rent and buy) and if you needed to move for any reason, thus breaching those conditions, you were heavily penalised.

    The circumstances of the person I know changed suddenly and dramatically and all this hidden stuff bit her very hard on the arse in summary.
    I’ll definitely check the small print, but the initial blurb says you can staircase when you can afford it and buy as much or as little as you want / can afford. Home Group also say you can sell either through them or source the external market. It’s an area I’m wary of though and will investigate further.
  • I'm on Shared Ownership and at a bit of a crossroads - staircased from 35% to 55% and can either increase it next year or sell-up and go for all of something else. Problem is that I imagine if I go any more than 55% (and less than 100%) it'd be pretty impossible to sell when you could just buy a cheaper flat in the area outright (without all the housing association/rent/staircasing crap).

    It definitely felt like a decent scheme to get on the ladder, but starting to fret about getting stuck on that particular part of the ladder.
  • Rob7Lee said:
    The deposit should only be for the share she is buying, at least it used to be, it wouldn't be on the full amount.

    Share ownership is perfectly fine, you can staircase up and buy the remainder over time, pay the full stamp duty now though (i.e. nothing!) to secure that for the future.
    I learnt this the hard way. Make sure the right box is ticked! 

    @SX_Addick they will try and sell their services in the financial assessment, it's low hanging fruit of first time buyers not knowing what they're doing. If you do need a broker, Marcus at https://www.remortgage.com/ goes above and beyond what you would expect from someone in that field. He's helped a lot of people I know now and I genuinely don't think my last move would have happened without him, he helped the whole process along.


  • Probably not the right thread for it but if anyone knows a decent solicitor in SE london to handle the purchase for us then do let me know.

    So far everyone I've asked has said "ours was shite dont touch them"
  • edited July 2020
    I agree that most people say solicitors are slow, sort of reactive, rather than proactive.
    So I found it difficult to decide as their charges vary greatly.
    My dilemma was why pay more, if they are all similar in standard, ie slow but get the job done.
    This may be of use.
    https://www.moneysupermarket.com/conveyancing/
  • I work for a solicitor firm in Essex who are currently doing my move, and they are decent (and not only because I know them). It doesn't really have to be anyone local does it? I've had to do everything remotely due to lockdown, and they could have been anywhere in the country. You can PM me if interested. Not the cheapest, but you get an actual solicitor that knows what they are doing handling it, not the cheapest available administrator.
  • I work for a Solicitor in Bexhill. Happy to pass on details of a Solicitor if you like. Very hands on and you won’t be fobbed off with a Secretary when you call/email. PM if interested.
  • SX_Addick said:
    Thanks for the comments and advice. Will look into the H2B, though hoping to find a decent mortgage that requires ‘only’ 10%. Yes, it is 10% of her share. The stamp duty holiday is a good opportunity to ‘pay’ it all now. Thanks again. 
    Might not be of much help but I know of a few lenders offering 85% mortgages.
  • I agree that most people say solicitors are slow, sort of reactive, rather than proactive.
    So I found it difficult to decide as their charges vary greatly.
    My dilemma was why pay more, if they are all similar in standard, ie slow but get the job done.
    This may be of use.
    https://www.moneysupermarket.com/conveyancing/
    Residential conveyancing isn't at the glamour end of the legal world but I can assure you that there is a very wide range of quality amongst conveyancers. The best are both inexpensive, proactive and quick - usually because they have good systems in place. 
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