January - June 2007
Between the time when we shook hands on the deal to actually moving into the cottage there was a lot to sort out. Guy and I assumed it would be as straight forward as moving house had always been, sell one place and borrow the money for another, pack up our stuff and move in, but it didn't turn out to be that simple!
So first up, we asked to borrow some money, we only had a small deposit from the sale of our house, but all the mortgage lenders we spoke to were keen for our business and said our joint salaries easily allowed us access to enough money to buy the cottage, this was an outstanding start to proceedings, but that all changed when they saw it! We couldn't get a regular mortgage on the cottage because it didn't meet the mortgage lenders criteria. The long and the tall of it was that there just weren't enough ticks in their boxes! They all said ".... the location is stunning, but the cottage is unmortgageable by our standards!" and they weren't prepared to lend us the money we needed on the basis of a nice view and some drawings of its future potential! It was considered too high a risk! It was quite bizarre to us that we couldn't get a mortgage....., we could easily afford it, we weren't expecting this complication and it left us wandering what we were going to do! Bottom line was that although the cottage came with full planning permission to knock it down and build a 4 bedroom house, we just wanted to live in the cottage as it was!
So first up, we asked to borrow some money, we only had a small deposit from the sale of our house, but all the mortgage lenders we spoke to were keen for our business and said our joint salaries easily allowed us access to enough money to buy the cottage, this was an outstanding start to proceedings, but that all changed when they saw it! We couldn't get a regular mortgage on the cottage because it didn't meet the mortgage lenders criteria. The long and the tall of it was that there just weren't enough ticks in their boxes! They all said ".... the location is stunning, but the cottage is unmortgageable by our standards!" and they weren't prepared to lend us the money we needed on the basis of a nice view and some drawings of its future potential! It was considered too high a risk! It was quite bizarre to us that we couldn't get a mortgage....., we could easily afford it, we weren't expecting this complication and it left us wandering what we were going to do! Bottom line was that although the cottage came with full planning permission to knock it down and build a 4 bedroom house, we just wanted to live in the cottage as it was!
It was fair to say that compared to modern day standards the cottage was basic; it's wooden frame forms a bungalow with asbestos boarding for its walls and ceilings, lift a floorboard and you see straight down to the soil two inches below, the walls had no insulation and neither did the roof, the windows and doors were draughty, other than two open fireplaces there was no heating, cold water was pumped into the cottage by hand from a tank situated outside, but it wasn't drinkable and to get to the toilet you had to go outside, as there was no running water supply there was no bathroom to wash in and the electric supply was only wired up into two of the rooms, there was no telephone line, no waste collection and no postal delivery.........but we loved it and really wanted to live in it!
Although the cottage was a little rough around the edges it was far from being dilapidated and we could see that with a little rennovation, simple improvements it would make a lovely home. In our mind there was no need to be in a rush to demolish it! Unable to convince any of the regular high street lenders to take us on, we had to consider knocking the cottage down and rebuilding it. We started buying the self-build magazines and searching on the internet to find out what funding was available. There were lenders around who were prepared to fund a building project, but they would only give you the money once they could see that you had completed each stage of the build, for example once the groundworks were done they would inspect them and if they were satisfied they were pay you the money you just spent to do that stage of the project, it was called stage payments.....which is a sensible idea, from their point of view. Immediately we could see that it was going to be a problem from our perspective because only having a relatively small deposit from the sale of our house, how were we going to buy the house in the first place let alone do the first stage of building! Luckily "Buildstore" offer an "Accelerator Mortgage" which meant that we would be able to borrow the money in advance to buy the house and land and begin.....phew! We exchanged on June 11th 2007 and completed the purchase on the 24th October 2007, we were incredibly happy and relieved that everything had worked out!
