Funding

The funding finally seems to be in place, although it has been a ridiculous week.

Originally, we were just taking out a simple mortgage on the new property, but a chance conversation changed all that.  Unlike the States, interest on your primary home is not tax-deductible here.  However, we found out interest on a rental property is.  Since we're planning on renting out Jessica's flat, a back-of-the-envelope calculation showed that by shifting equity from the flat to the house could save us £15,000/year!

So we told the mortgage advisor (who probably should have told us about this in the first place) to rip up the first mortgage application and start over.  Last Saturday, we went to sign the final paperwork, and everything fell apart.

All I did was ask if the bank would waive the £699 fee.  The mortgage advisor called Monday to say they wouldn't waive the fee...and the interest rate was significantly higher than expected...and they wouldn't loan us as much as we we needed!  Jess and I were already quite annoyed with her, and this was the last straw.  She had taken nearly three weeks to get the new loan, she obviously hadn't talked to the bank, and she was now costing me money.  Two weeks ago I had to argue with her about basic math (she got confused between deposit and loan amount), and we'd both had to sit through endless hours of unrelated paperwork and 'options' (i.e. add-ons).  It was too much, and with a few choice words, I told her we'd go direct to the bank.

And we did.  In fact, I was at work until 8pm that night filling out a mortgage application over the phone. When I got home, however, I checked online and found a much better rate with another bank...but it was good for one week only, and the bank only worked through mortgage consultants!

So I had to call the advsior back and eat some crow.  It was already Tuesday, the application had to be in by the end of the week, she was off on Thursday, and we were out of town Friday!  We met on Wednesday to sign the paperwork, and she promised to come in on her day off to ensure there weren't any problems.  On Friday -- just as we got on the motorway -- she called to say she'd lost the paperwork.

Fortunately, we had time to stop at our hotel, and they had a fax machine so we were able to get it back on track.  The surveyor (appraisor, to you) will be coming tomorrow, so I presume it is all taken care of.  At least I hope so, because the rate has gone from 4.25% to 4.8%, which equates to over £1,000/year!