Santander/Abbey finally turned us down for the mortgage, and the appeal (about a week ago). Rob [fantastic mortgage advisor] had already given up on them and started the process off applying with Barclays/Woolwich - we'd already got the survey booked with them before the appeal was denied by Santander, so very glad he's taken that approach.
We were massively confused how a couple of people who were 'pre-approved' for a loan, agreed a loan in principle and over two months into the process could be turned down for potentially being developers?! You've seen our funds, guys, where is the extra money coming from? Beans won't transform that house! Either the valuation is correct [about £160k below the price we'd agreed with the vendors; so absolutely no profit to be made on resale of the house] or we are developers; you can't have both!
We heard from Claire on the fifteenth that Santander were giving out decisions on appeals lodged on the eighth; ours was on the ninth, so why the delay? Why did a director of the firm (for goodness' sake) think we should be given a loan, and still we're turned down?
I absolutely have no clue!
Yesterday we find out that Santander have published guidelines on their website [pre-existing guidelines, not new ones] that they won't lend on houses with more than ten acres of land...
Needless to say, the place we're after ("Brookside"), has 10.962 - just what I'd always dreamed of, but admittedly more than 10 acres... So why did the computer let us go further than the initial data-input application? On the 24th May! Why wait nearly two and a half months to turn us down?
Fingers crossed Barclays [who thus far seem so much more 'switched on' (Jessica Gorst-Williams doesn't feature them nearly as heavily as Santander who are always promising to sort out their "left-hand/right-hand" communications failures, and have been for years!)] will make a decision soon.
We have had their valuation survey - still on the low side, but a much more realistic figure than Glen had managed...
[Seriously we would have loved to find a place with woodland at the price he came in at - haven't found one in over two years, in a rising market; pretty sure we couldn't find one now, but would gladly pay him a huge sum of money if he could find us one! Sadly, no-one challenges valuation surveyors to put their money where their mouths are.]
Now Rob is in negotiations over whether we need an arboriculturist's report about the conifers [which may have caused/exacerbated the cracking to the structure following the 2003 heatwave/drought]; our take is that the insurance company is happy to insure the place [having seen the full structural engineer's report we commissioned, and which Barclays/Woolwich agree makes the place mortgageable] without a tree-removal/survey clause, so their money is covered should the trees be a problem...
Another day, another hoop!
Is it helping my zen-ness?
Yes, I think it probably is, but the the CBT imagining myself somewhere perfect far, far away may be helping more!
And don't get me started on root-canal work [fine, no worries] painkiller interaction with trigeminal neuralgia painkillers...
Everything is so crossed I may never walk again!
p.s. The sale of the semi in Pluckley has fallen through, Hobbs Parker were in touch to see if we were still interested... We doubt if we could get a mortgage for that house if we can't get one for this house [and it's not the numbers that aren't stacking up, it's the aftershocks of the new Mortgage Market Review making all lenders as jittery and paranoid as the worst kind of jittery paranoiacs!], and although that house is (miles) better, the whole package is better at "Brookside": wrapped in woodland, further from neighbours, woodland nearer to house, quieter location and no footpath running through the middle of the land. So we are still absolutely committed to the purchase, and hope we can find the additional funds to make it our dream house in time...
Everything crossed!
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