I was in the process of writing a post about how I had some awesome news, and after spending just 6 weeks looking for a home of my own to buy, I had had an offer accepted on a lovely little Victorian house in Bristol.
I had already dubbed it the Little Yellow House, mused on how lucky I was (ha!) in the ferociously competitive market in Bristol to have found somewhere and managed to successfully bid on it in such a short time. I had even mentally started the renovation project in my mind (and on Pinterest).
I. Was. Ecstatic.
And just 3 short days after getting the brilliant(ly unexpected) news about the offer acceptance, I had an equally unexpected and much less welcome call from my mortgage broker on Friday: there was a major issue with my mortgage application, and when I asked if I should be genuinely concerned I got the very ominous answer of "yes".
At this moment in time, I honestly have no idea whether we can rescue the purchase and I'll have a house all of my own in just a few short weeks time, or if everything is going to come grinding to a halt and I'll not only have to let the vendor down, which I absolutely hate to think about, but I won't be able to even start the process again for another 18 months or more.
Distressed is really not the word. Although numb and resigned occasionally comes close, as does panic.
Somehow, and I don't even know how this happened, I sailed through all the initial questions from the mortgage broker about my financial situation and got a provisional green light from the banks, and it only emerged on Friday when the broker took the actual real-deal mortgage application to the bank, that there is a HUGE issue with my having been out of the country on my ski seasons. Yeah - I don't get it either.
It would appear that at some point in the last couple of years, a lot of the banks decided that anyone who had lived abroad in the last 3 years automatically got benched in the mortgage game. Where this gets super annoying for me is that, although I did technically live and work abroad and so put a French address in my address history, EVERYTHING to do with my credit, financial and work history during that period remained in the UK - my banking, my salary from my UK employer, my tax arrangements, my loans and credit cards and phone plans, my ability to vote, I wasn't even on the lease on the work property I was staying in - so the reason why they won't touch people who've lived abroad (gaps in the credit history so they can't judge the application properly) doesn't apply to me at all.
My broker and I are now desperately trying to work out a way round this, so that someone will give me a mortgage, but I don't know how long I actually have given I'm now in a chain. It seems ridiculous that someone with my salary and credit score (significantly higher than the national average on the first and about 10 points short of the maximum possible out of 999 on the second) could end up in this position.
Cross all your fingers and toes for me if you will!!
The only good thing in this whole scenario is that I can tell that my tendency to stress eat is well and truly behind me now as there has been zero inclination to binge or snack outside of normal during the whole thing. In fact, I'm actually on a pretty great eating kick at the moment, but I'll save that update for another day.
The only weird behaviour I caught myself indulging in was mentally finding sneaky ways to try and blame myself for what has happened, when it CLEARLY outside of my zone of influence. I found myself thinking it was my fault for celebrating too early, or of course I didn't deserve to have the house go through, and other weird inner-mean-girl-in-my-ear thoughts. I told her roundly to shut up and eff off - I deserve this damn house and I'm going to fight for it.
Send all your good mortgage / buying vibes my way if you will!
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