WillowBarn

It was actually Melton BS, who we thought would understand things and be quite reliable, but it seems not! Just blown away by the lack of any desire to engage in a conversation about it, it seems odd.

Thanks all. We are persistent, it just seems quite illogical to just say no and close the case that swiftly. We would definitely consider other options like another, very detailed structural report. We could discuss reinforcing the steels if needed or even worst case scenario, replacing them completely as we don’t think it would render the project unviable, from a budget perspective. It just doesn’t make sense!

No, it’s definitely a self build for conversion mortgage and they have known the plans since the start. It’s very odd and even the broker has said this is a big surprise to them as they have had preliminary conversations with the lender and didn’t raise any issues. It is the first time that they have experienced this.

Hi all, we have a bit of a dilemma. We have an offer accepted on a steel portal framed barn and land, with the benefit of Class Q being granted. We can just about afford to pay cash for this if we need to with the help of family borrowing and releasing equity in our current house, but would much rather have a self build mortgage in place as it can help towards the purchase of the barn and land as well as the build stages so this makes much more sense. We started that application process 5-6 weeks ago, through a broker, provided a lot of paperwork, answered all the questions promptly and have held our breath ever since, all whilst the sale and contracts have been moving along. Last week we were asked if we were keeping the steels or replacing them. The structural report we have indicates these steels are in good condition so should be fine, so we said yes, the plan is to keep them. The next day, we were told we have been turned down with our application because we are keeping the steel and that we would be refunded the valuation fee (as they never went out to value it) but would keep the £500 application fee. Case closed. No further opportunity to discuss replacing steels, reinforcing steels or the fact that the report by the engineer indicates they are fine. Has anybody else had such a strange (and frustrating not to mention stressful) experience like this? Can anyone help us understand the rationale and if there is anything that we can do here? Our only real options now are: A) continue and pay cash; we are worried though that we won’t be able to get any sort of mortgage to fund the actual build now B) find another self build mortgage (timescale wise this may not be very feasible as the current owners want to sell ASAP) C) walk away from the sale (which we really don’t want to do having invested six months of our lives to it now!) Thanks all for reading, hoping that someone has some advice!