Remortgaging UK Home

[hawks]

Hi All, When we moved to Aus, we kept our London flat, and got consent to let from the bank, but never changed it to a Buy To Let Mortgage. I think the value has gone up enough now so we should have the 25%-30% required for a proper buy to let mortgage, and hopefully reduce our rate.

 

My question is has anyone remortgaged from here, and which UK bank is most accommodating with overseas applicants?

[PomPenny]

Hi All, When we moved to Aus, we kept our London flat, and got consent to let from the bank, but never changed it to a Buy To Let Mortgage. I think the value has gone up enough now so we should have the 25%-30% required for a proper buy to let mortgage, and hopefully reduce our rate.

 

My question is has anyone remortgaged from here, and which UK bank is most accommodating with overseas applicants?

 

Hi, our situation is slightly different, but thought our experiences may help you........we are taking out a mortgage on our UK property ( which has no mortgage) to use as deposit for buying a property here. To make sure this was possible, I phoned a few places and was assured there was no problem. So I travelled back to the UK to make this happen quickly, and because much of the paperwork needed was there ( pension, house insurance etc)

i had a phone interview which gave offer in principal, and then went to ( HSBC) bank next day for what I thought would be next step, armed with all paperwork they could possibly need, to get things processing asap seeing the Australian house buying system works much faster than the UK.

But it turned out I was missing one thing.....! Despite explaining everything when both in Australia and the UK, as soon as I walked in, they asked where my husband was! And I was told that he had to be present in person, not once, but at two separate occasions to sign documents in person. They offered me a strong coffee as condolence but said there was nothing they could do otherwise. I couldn't believe that after all the chats on the phone explaining the situation that the people in the actual bank said it couldn't be done.

I did question how I knew who to trust about knowing what the bank offered...........but I had to accept defeat and leave.

the next day, I received a letter in the post thanking me for my mortgage application ( by phone), saying they hoped I was happy with the service ...........fools put on a free phone number the letter, ha ha.

so I phoned to tell them exactly what I thought of their service.

but this time, I got a super guy who was Australian working in the UK, who really knew what the bank did and what could be offered . So it turns out that HSBC have just started a new phone/ online service for people in our situation, and all the documentation can be downloaded onto the system. My husband just needed to go into HSBC in Perth to get his passport and driving licence with UK address on verified and the original copies had to be couriered to the UK.

So it has all been done over the phone and documents downloaded to our online application. It needs someone in the UK to let them into the house for valuation purposes , but doesn't have to be you.

Pleased to say that our mortgage application is getting processed

 

so a long rant, as it was mindblowingly stressful when I was roughly being told I had travelled back for nothing, but the moral is that some people will prefer to tell you things can't be done if they don't personally know about it, rather than looking at solving the situation or asking others.

 

I can say that HSBC in the UK can help you, and contact me for links if you get told they can't!

 

be aware though that there is absolutely no link between HSBC UK and HSBC Australia. They call themselves an international bank, but it really means they have branches around the World and no more. They don't communicate with each other, and they are completely different businesses. Therefore there is no need, and no advantage, in banking with them here in Oz. Though I have to say that the Oz HSBC has been extremely good, quick and helpful with our Ozzie mortgage, and on a different thread, we too were offered up to 30 year term despite being in our 50's!

 

hope this helps!