I think this is my problem with renting, we’ve rented for the last 8 years, It drives me mad knowing that we’re paying somebody else’s mortgage and at the end of it we have nothing to show for the massive amount of money we pay every month. So whilst you might be breaking even financially, it’s a different story in terms of your assets, every month that goes by your increasing your ownership of that property. and essentially it’s not costing you.
We’re in the process of buying, because we needed to upsize desperately which in our area would cost an additional 2-300 a month whereas buying means we can save about 100 pounds on what we pay currently, and mainly because i can’t bare to keep paying somebody else’s mortgage when we could have something to show for it at the end.
Absolutely, I hope my comment didn’t come across as “woe is me”. Now we have our own place though, it will be more efficient in terms of both tax and interest to sell the rental and pay down the mortgage on our home. Especially as the greater proportion of ownership, the greater our capital gains tax liability. I might have a different attitude if we owned the freehold, but dealing with an ever shortening lease and ever increasing ground rent and service charge makes me prefer to have our assets more within our direct control.
There’s been some (organic & welcome) broadening of discussion beyond Conveyancing so I’ve updated the topic title.
I do wonder if Monzo will even expand into mortgage lending, eventually. I know they did some form of trials last year (acting as intermediary, rather than lender I believe).
Perhaps not the right time given the state of the world, the going-concern, etc. It seems the profit margins are being squeezed anyway:
I’m not sure how Monzo would even approach mortgage lending either… I don’t see them being brokers, akin to a Habito. Maybe a partnership, similar to the third party savings accounts e.g. Investec, where you simply manage it through a Monzo pot would be the most likely in the short-term.
Personally would be all for a direct Monzo mortgage. I mentioned in opening post, would love an IFTTT or round-up feature that allowed you to overpay your mortgage, and clearly see the resultant savings over remaining term.
Wasn’t the trial in partnership with Habito? As you say unless things really goes sideways Monzo won’t hold mortgages on their own balance sheet. Mortgages is a low margin business that won’t fit Monzo’s high margin valuation.
I’d be curious to know more about the economics of Habito’s business model, I seem to remember they raised a lump of cash to offer mortgages themselves that they would then pass on to other investors.
I got a mortgage in principle from Habito some time ago, it was a really elegant experience.
I remember the first mortgage offering through Monzo was with Mojo Mortgages. I applied for a remortgage at the time, as a beta tester, but it couldn’t go through because only Personal accounts were supported and we operated from a Joint Account.
So I went with Mojo directly and got a great deal and had a great experience too.
Unfortunately I can’t say if there was any preferential discount/treatment or if it was just a link Monzo provided to the provider, as it didn’t work as intended for me via Monzo at the time.
Very similar situation - moving into an empty house, no chain either way, both keen to get on.
Our solicitors said that they were waiting on the sellers solicitor. The estate agent rang us threatening the buyer may pull out if we didn’t hurry up, did we even want the house… I had a panic attack at work. To be fair, my solicitor was good with that, she calmed me down and rang the estate agent to give them an earful lol. But I have no real way to check who was actually delaying things.
The help to buy ISA process was also a nightmare from start to finish.
It’s just such a slow process and I don’t know a single person who’s had a quick easy buy, and they ALL seem to be because of solicitors.
Sorry to hear that, very frustrating. The uncertainty/lack of protection is the worst bit, I’m finding.
There’s been some progress on my purchase this week, we’re 90% there but the final hurdles mainly sit with the seller’s solicitors, who don’t seem to be earning their fee! Baffles me that fax is still being used (by both sides) .
Aiming to complete 21 Aug (well, the aim was 14th!) so here’s hoping .
You mentioned you looked at Habito before, I’ve been really impressed with them for mine - they gave me about 30 different mortgage options, a very good interest rate and are free to use.
£50 John Lewis voucher for us both if you use my referral but that’s no factor in my recommendation! As I say am using them myself.
Well good luck with that, it sounds like you’re on the home straight so fingers crossed it will all go through!!
And it’s ok, it all just seems like a distant bad memory now we have the house, hopefully yours will too!! It does make me very anxious about the prospect of buying again though, especially when we have more at stake now with there being a chain.
I’ve remortgaged four times before when mortgage terms ended, through banks and face-to-face brokers and while good at the time, you have to spend hours going through options and paperwork, usually in someone else’s office.
The last remortgage was done online via Mojo and (for us) it was a refreshingly blissful experience compared to the usual Bank/Mortgage Broker option.
So, I’m still yet to exchange and the 5+ month clock ticks on…
It seems the vendor’s solicitor has just been sitting on (or lost) some key documents (dated 22 May!!). I’ve turned up the pressure because this isn’t sustainable, and lo and behold there’s been a miraculous surge in progress, and hopefully we’ll complete within the next 2 weeks.
The whole conveyancing process is crying out for an online workflow / portal similar to what @anon28892155 described; one that breaks down the component tasks and both sides can see the progress:
Mortgage approved
Searches Returned
Surveys conducted
Lease / Freehold Received
Property Information Form agreed
Deposit transferred to solicitor
Contract Signed
Target Exchange Date = XX/XX/XXXX
Target Completion Date = XX/XX/XXXX
Etc.
The lack of transparency, and communication is a nightmare. It’s difficult to identify the bottlenecks (and therefore resolutions) in the current ‘system’. An online portal would certainly help keep everyone on the same page, and remove some of the terrible excuses you seem to hear (meh, we haven’t received that document).
Rant 2:
5+ months into a process it seems utter madness to me that until you Exchange, you have absolutely no protection if either party decides to walk away. You both lose all your legal & survey costs too. Apparently, some reform is on the way, and the Home Buyers Alliance is a proponent of Reservation Agreements.
I’m 110% in favour of the concept. In a nutshell, both sides commit an amount (say £1,000) once the Offer has been Accepted as a kind of good-faith payment. Then, if someone torpedos the deal for a frivolous reason, the ‘innocent’ party receives the £1000 and it goes towards covering their costs to date.
Of course it wouldn’t be perfect, and there will be scope to argue what mandates a ‘good reason’ etc. but it seems like an absolute no brainer.
I also think that when you’re selling a house, you should present the results yourself. Sometimes when you’re buying a car, the advert will say HPI clear and there’s a photo of the report that the seller has done.
Why can’t we have that with houses?
I’ve bought one property, it was empty and I was living at home. Zero chain. Took about 8 weeks. We want to move, probably in about a year, the thought of it dragging on for 5 months+ makes me want to live here until my dying day!
Our scheduled completion date is next week. The process has been dragging on for so long I’m really anxious now. There’s no way it can go wrong now, is there? Should I chase the solicitor a couple of days before to make sure all is still well?
Have you exchanged then? Feels like after that commitment is established things go a lot smoother as suddenly there are costs associated with delays. At least thats how I felt! Massive sigh of relief after being told exchange had happened
nothing goes wrong
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