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Our property investment expert is Jeni Browne, Sales Director at
Mortgages for Business
www.mortgagesforbusiness.co.uk/
Tel: 0345 345 6788
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Question
Remortgaging in times of interest rates rises
I have heard mortgage rates are forecast to increase by 13% in 2023 and will start rising next year. I am a little concerned about what to do because my five-year fixed rate is due to end in April next year!
Will this mean my mortgage rate will go up when I remortgage in April? Is there anything I can do to find a better deal? I have looked into exiting my current deal early, but there is a penalty.
Answer
Yes, this is indeed the prediction on rates or at least one version of the predictions!
I have some good news for you – many lenders provide six-month mortgage offers, so you can apply for a mortgage now, and then once your offer comes through (which takes around three weeks), you have a further six-month window on which to complete.
This means you can secure a rate now, before they go up, and then tie in the completion for when your current rate ends.
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Question
Mortgages for applicant with poor credit score
Please can you advise me on how we could go about finding a company which might be able to help us get a mortgage.
I have a very poor credit rating – but my husband is fine. We are renting privately having provided a guarantor.
Answer
This is really tricky to answer because a poor credit rating can mean so many things and lenders have very different approaches to how they view credit misdemeanours.
For example, some people have many historical missed payments (eg, over three years ago), which many lenders generally ignore. In contrast, another person may have a single missed payment within the last six months which means a lender will not lend to them – it’s all quite involved!
The very best advice I can offer you here is to take your credit report to a mortgage broker and ask them what they feel your options are, based on the details within the report.
It may be that they can help, and it may also be that proceeding in just your husband’s name would be a better option… I wish you luck with it.
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Question
House buying delay: Will I lose my mortgage offer?
We are selling our home and to cut a very long story short it’s taken months of to-ing, fro-ing, buyers pulling out and all sorts of other problems. Although we have just secured a buyer, the solicitors are taking a very long time – so much so we are worried our mortgage offer for our new house will run out.
We got the mortgage in principle in June! What will happen to the offer and will we get the same terms if we need to re-apply?
Answer
I’m having the exact same experience with my own home move at the moment – it’s so stressful, isn’t it?
Your mortgage offer will have a ‘valid to’ date, so you need to check that first. The lender may be able to extend this for you, but this would, more than likely, only be for a couple of weeks.
Once you know how long you realistically have and whether an extension would work in terms of where you are in the sales process, I would suggest you speak to your lender and ask how they can help you with this.
The worst case is that they will not extend your offer, and you would need to reapply. This would mean taking a new rate, so it is worth having that conversation with them now, so you know what to expect should it come to it. Good luck!
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Question
Shared ownership: What are my options when the mortgage is paid?
If you own 50% of a shared ownership property, when the mortgage finishes, can you just stay in the property and pay the rent, or do you have the sell the property?
Answer
If you are in a shared ownership property and your mortgage expires and you cannot repay it, you would need to sell the property, as the lender would want to have their mortgage money back.
If you have repaid the mortgage, you can indeed stay on in the property and simply pay rent on the half you don’t own.
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