Buildloan/Buildstore Fees

[bluebellcottage]

Hello,

 

I'm new to the forum, it looks like a great resource for information from a really knowledgeable group of people. The first question I have (first of many I expect) is with regards to Buildloan's fees. I initially started an application with Buildstore myself but didn't find them very forthcoming with information and after reading about their fees on here decided to use an independent mortgage adviser. Fast forward a little and I found out the product he is recommending is through Buildloan which I guess is subject to the same fees and Buildstore. 

 

The main fee from the breakdown I am unsure of is the Additional Security Fee, this is charged for both the advance and arears stage mortgage and seems to be to cover any additional risk, will this be charged whoever I get a selfbuild mortgage though or is this a "stealth fee" from Buildstore?

 

Any help would be very much appreciated. 

[Thedreamer]

Sounds as if you are going to go a broker to go to a broker.

 

Lots of fees with Buildstore. Our mortgage was going to be with the Newcastle Building Society, I was shocked by the fees.

 

I would look at building societies. 

 

Might be useful to state where in the UK you are. In Scotland our choice were limited to a few lenders.

 

And welcome to the forum.

[bluebellcottage]

Hello,

 

Thank you for your reply and the warm welcome.

 

Yes, you are right we appear to have ended up going through two brokers now in an attempt to avoid the fees associated with the original broker I went with (buildstore). The mortgage  would be wit Furness building society, who as far as I am aware don't deal direct with customers for self build mortgages. 

 

We are in East Anglia, so England rather than Scotland, our planning is for a build with around 45% timber cladding and 65% brick/Glass (blockwork construction beneath cladding) , I believe we are somewhat limited by that with mortgage lenders due to this.

 

P.s. Yes the fees were a bit of a shock although was expecting them to be higher than normal. 

 

 

[soapstar]

@bluebellcottage

 

We actually went with buildstore/buildloan for our mortage and we are glad of it, they made the process very simple. Yes the fees are high, especially the 'Additional Security Fee', however by taking some of the stress off our shoulders helped us focus on the build. The advisors are very keyed up on the self build world and know the in's and out's of all the potential issues which may arise.

 

The only negative was a failure to express we would need to show a 10% contingency during our application, I can only assume this was a simply mistake on their behalf however 10% of build costs is rather large!

 

They particularly made the re-mortgage process at the end very simple (I was dreading this part). A potential issue came up with our solicitor during our application which would have stopped any 'day to day' broker with our land ownership. One call to buildloan and they knew exactly what to do from previous experience and all was fixed!

 

If you can afford the fees I suggest to go with them and focus your time on the build to be honest!

Edited May 24, 2021 by soapstar