My wife and I want to buy a house and we have a mortgage offer from a lender since 4 month ago, that we didn't accept yet due to sellers taking longer than expected to sort things out. Since they gave us the offer, interest rates have gone down considerably. Can we re-apply for a new offer with the same lender or pick another one ? Or should we wait for the offer to expire ? What are the implications of doing this ?
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1"Or should we wait for the offer to expire ?" when does it expire? Have you paid any non-refundable fees to the potential lender?– mhoran_psprepJul 16, 2021 at 10:22
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4This might be a question to ask the lender directly.– LawrenceJul 16, 2021 at 10:47
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"we have a mortgage offer from a lender since 4 month ago, that we didn't accept yet" - so you had an Agreement in Principle? Or you had actually applied for a mortgage?– AakashMJul 16, 2021 at 13:50
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2 Answers
We did this.
It cost us a further £995 product fee, but saved us £3,212 over the first five years of the mortgage. So, worth it 🤷🏻♂️
It will depend on your lender. Our broker (mortgage adviser / intermediary) arranged this pretty easily. Brokers can be a lot of help.
From personal experience, yes.
Earlier this year I applied for a mortgage with a UK bank (Nat-West). As first we were declined, but were then approved having increased our downpayment. Before accepting the mortgage, I noticed that the promotional fixed rate we'd been given was based upon our old downpayment. The bank were unable to transfer me onto the "correct" mortgage product for our revised downpayment, so I was advised to make a new application instead.
I had to (re-)submit much of the initial paperwork for the new application, but I made a note for the underwriters to cross-reference things with the old application. The only significant complication I had was that I couldn't start a new online application with the same online account: I had to create a new account with an alternative email address.
In the meantime, I gave our solicitors instructions not to draw down the old mortgage offer. Within a week or two, the new application was approved, and we proceeded to purchase the house with the revised mortgage offer.
Our mortgage arrangement fee was only payable on drawing down the money, so we weren't charged for the first application. There may have been some minor fees related to ID/background checks that we had to do a second time, but they were on the order of tens of pounds. The bank's first valuation of the property was still good enough for them, so we didn't pay double on that, either. I seem to recall the valuation had a lifespan of six months, so on that basis it may be better to apply for a revised mortgage sooner rather than later.
