Mortgage for flat over cafe - help!

Have you actually spoken to any mortgage company or are you going on hearsay? If a high street mortgage bank or building society will not help then go and see a mortgage broker.Take care with those that will offer you a mortgage for a fee. Their fees can be enormous and usually linked to an uncompetative mortgage rate. Eric

In message , Eric Jones writes

Im going to have to take issue with you there Eric. SOME fee charging brokers are as you describe, but the vast majority are not. For a broker to rely merely on a lenders procuration fee is likely to mean that the broker will not give you the time or care needed. A fee of a couple of hundred quid is very common and is quite reasonable.

John - Will the rate be the same as in the high street? Eric

In message , Eric Jones writes

Yes, and often better. Lenders will sometimes offer better rates to brokers because the lender has no marketing, sales or compliance costs. Also, many apps are done on line now and it is the brokers time that is spent 'keying' the app, not the lender's. Mainstream mortgage lenders (as opposed to clearing banks who also do mortgages) obtain the majority of their business (sometimes as much as 80%) from the intermediary market and it is VERY important to them. Some mainstream lenders have no other delivery channel other than mortgage intermediaries.

A typical mortgage broker will have at least one if not two PC/Internet based mortgage souring systems such as Mortgage Brain, M2000, TriGold etc., which will typically have over 4000 schemes from all the lenders including EVERY high street lender. The software will compare total costs of loans over any period you like and take into account the different interest charging methods, different val fees, arrangement - early redemption fees etc., so that a true comparison is available. Well worth £200!

Also, a broker is likely to have a good relationship with some specialist lenders. I have had some "esoteric" loans agreed in this way, which normally would not have merited completion of an application form.

In article , BrownLF writes

Have you asked? I have two flats over premises that have been tea rooms, wine bar and restaurant. The uses never arose in the Initial mortgage 20 years ago nor in subsequent refinancing.

Considering how many flats there are over restaurants, plus the desperation to lend money, mortgaging should be a piece of piss.

At the end of the day, when all is said and done, it is a pretty sour business, after all.

In message , Doug Ramage writes

Quite! A relationship like that is good. I approached one small b/soc with whom I have such a relationship to lend, completely safely, on a huge loan for a consultant surgeon but they were very slightly uncompetitive on rate. The local lending manager said "what rate do you want us to charge him for us to get the business?" Oh for the good old days!

As an aside - I use a basic assessment - Would I have lent them the money myself? (Back to the good old days of personal discretion!)

If I wouldn't have, then I dont see why I should try and con some other mug to do it.

! :-)

Agreed. :)

Personal discretion is all very well, but not if you ain't got it.

You haven't got a clue, Sonny (I only call you that because you get upset when I call you by labels which include the word "old"). Unless you're filthy rich and *have* the money to lend yourself, you can't think in the same way as someone who merely has the power to decide whether to lend someone else's money. -- It doesn't matter as much to you if they lose it as when you lose it.

If you still have that bank manager's hat in your wardrobe, it's time you fetched it out an burnt it.

Well, OK, don't burn it, but promise only to wear it when recounting anecdotes.

In message , Ronald Raygun writes

There speaks someone who has no idea what personal discretion meant.

I am sure you will come round to my way of thinking in due course, the same way as you have over most of the other things you disagreed with me about originally over the years.

Such as what? I can't remember any, but perhaps that's the result of subconsciously suppressing the ability to recollect such unpleasant experiences. :-)

What I meant was, and I'm sorry if it wasn't clear, that you'd be unlikely to apply the same criteria when deciding whether to lend your own money than your employer's. You couldn't help but be more careful if it's your own money you might never see again.

It's also unrealistic to compare those two sets of criteria when deciding (as a banker) to lend sums so large that you could never lend personally because you don't have that much to lend (unless you borrow it cheaper).

You don't actually disagree with that, do you?

Oh the order of IHT on PETs, the actual ways banks calculate interest etc.,

Hmm, well I beg to differ on specific grounds that I wont refer to here.

No, but having personal discretion meant you could lose your job if they didnt pay it back! And before you ask the answers is NO, that isnt the reason I left!

I guessed as much. Presumably there were guidelines to decide the automatic yes/no cases, and discretion only for the borderline cases. But then with the disincentive of your job on the line, why would you ever use discretion to say yes? Or were you on commission?

Not in the old days before credit score.

No, it was all down to you, just so long as you were acting within your personal authority, WBA as it was called (Within Branch Authority). You got sent on loads of lending courses to teach you how to assess cases and learned mnemonics like PARSE (Person Amount Repayment Security Expediency).

Because you were tasked to make a profit, and to make a profit you had get more interest in than you paid out which meant you had to lend money.

No (sadly). But you had regular personal assessments and your salary would depend on how that went. But in my day, volume and quantity of 'sales' was not part of the review, but there were 25 other headings tho!

I don't know where you got the information from to make this monstrous statement. And competative is spelt competitive.

Rob Graham

LOL

Doug Ramage wrote: [snip]

Absolutely fascinating, I could watch it for hours.