Mortgages

Hi,

Just thought I would see how people are doing with mortgages.If you are using builders lender ? and as normal for Don Juan are you finding them hard to contact  and get information?

If anyone is using them what do you think of their terms ? and do you have a good contact.

Thanks in advance.

Steve and Sam.

This message was last edited by sam on 3/7/2007.

Hi Steve & Sam The developers mortgage is with Caixa Galicia & is not bad in the sense that they are not charging any set up fees and also their interest rate is very reasonable at 0.75% over Euribor however their terms are fixed i.e. they won't increase the lending amount or extend the term etc also as you suggest they are not that easy to get hold off / comunicate with in English. They do however have a representative office in London (you can get the number through directory enquiries) who can liase with the Spanish office for you. I have decided to go with an alternate lender and I have been informed that the banks valuer was supposed to have gone in and done the bank valuation / survey last Thursday and am now waiting for their report. It will be interesting to see how much they value the apartment at. Regards RG

Hi All

My Solicitor contacted Caixa Galicia and they confirmed that it was possible to make changes i.e the mortgage term but there would be a 250 euro fee.

Regards Andy

 

That is quite a different answer to the one I got when I spoke to Caixa Galicia's London office. But anyway for anyone interested I today received the mortgage banks valuation for my 2bed 2 bath property they valued it at over €282000.

Hi all

We got our morgage from bankinter in spain and they valued our apartment at €300,000. also our solisator said it would be complete in mid April. Here is Hoping.

Hi EOIN,

Will you inform on which type of aprtment you have, and the location?

Thanks!

Have just come from the Caixa bank in Malaga. We spoke to Juan Antonio and he discussed fully  mortgages, Life insurance and buildings insurance. We have not had the oppurtunity to discuss it fully ourselves but at present things look very favourable. Also if you take the builders mortgage certain costs are less. This is something we are looking into at present. I will come back at a later date after we have had time to digest the infrormation and probably when we return home at the weekend. They are happy to increase the mortgage if you need it. The meeting was very  helpful.

Hi Janmet

Thanks for the latest  info. It is usually not a good idea to go with the banks Buildings/contents and life cover as it is nearly always more expensive. Get a comparison from a broker, or checkout wether or not you can extend the amount of life cover you have in the UK. Not sure if this is allowed if the cover is in the UK but the property in Spain. I would have thought that its ok as the policy is purely a life policy, but its always best to double check these things. I believe the Euribor bank rate has just increased to 3.75%, so if the developer adds the  0.75% on top we are looking at 4.5% variable rate at the moment based over 15 years, though obviously these rates may go up or down. A good website to give you an idea of mortgage payments is http://mortgages.interest.com/content/calculators/monthly-payment.asp  just enter the amount borrowed over a number of years and add any overpayments and set an interest rate. After you have found out your monthly amount click on the amortization link, and it gives you a table of all of your payments, interest paid, and remaining balance etc. Its good for giving you an idea of where you stand with the balance of the mortgage say in 5 years time if you were planning to move out to Spain for good.

Let us know how you get on.

Good Luck

Westport

Hi all, I am taking the developers mortgage and I am currently waiting to see if my application has been approved. Is anyone else taking on the developers mortgage and if so do you know if you actually receive official notification that the bank has approved you?

Regards, Andy

Hi OtterAndy

We were with our solicitor yesterday in Spain to sort out the documents she required for the developers mortgage. I will let you know what feedback I get as soon as I receive it. We had to provide P60's, last 3 months wage slips, 2-3 years self employed accounts and upto 6 months bank statements.

Westport

HI Andy

We are with the same solicitor as you.  We applied through the solicitor giving her all the necessary pay slips etc. and she had a reply from the mortgage lender that we had been successful.  The reply only took a week or so. 

Keith & Val

Hi Keith & Val, Many thanks for info. I applied about a week ago so should hear back from Teresa next week.

Thanks, Andy

Hi Andy,

When we were out over Easter,  we went to Malaga to sort the Mortgage with the developers bank. Although we had all the relevant forms our solicitor had not e mailed the Apartment contract so we were unable to sign although we were told verbally theer would be no problem regarding our mortage.

We did open a current account with them and hopefully during the next visit there will be less paperwork as we spent two hours with them this time.

The bank is easy to find and is only a five minute walk from the train station in Malaga near Corte Ingles department store.

Regards

Steve & Sam

We also applied for the developers mortgage. It took us eight weeks to get a reaction, but I'm not sure if this was our sollicitors fault or the bank's. They blamed each other. Anyway all we got was a telephone that 'it was allright'. I didn't accept this and wanted a formal offer by the bank. They stated this couldn't be done as these offers are only valid for ten days and completion was not near enough.

Finally managed to get an email with a text stating that they accept the figures and are willing to give us a mortgage. For what it's worth..

Has anyone been asked for builders mortgage cancellation fees?  We have just had a letter from our solicitor requesting this. Although we enquired into the costs of a mortgage we at no time agreed or arranged with anyone to take out this mortgage. Our solicitor is asking for us to arrange transfer of funds as she thinks completion will be in July.

Hu Janet

Quite a flurry of activity tonight! I hope this is a positive sign. We will not be taking the developer's mortgage and were asked to pay the cancelation fee. This is illegal (I read elswhere on this site) so I sent my solicitors an e-mail stating that I would not be paying the cancellation fee. This has now been accepted - so don't pay it and remind your solicitor's that you are paying their fee not the developer!!

Kind Regards

David

 

I received an email today from my solictor (JLC Abagados ) confirming that I had formally been accepted by the bank for the developers morgage and that the first completions are expected to start from around 15th July onwards.

Shame that Euro base rate keeps going up.

Regards,  Andy

aotter@freeuk.com

 

 

Good news about a potential completion date!  Some time ago - may have been at the last stage payment - we were told by our solicitor that it was our last chance to cancel the option on the developers mortgage.  We didn't do this as we'd not received any details and wanted to keep our options open.  It's good to know that we can cancel and not incur any charges. 

We've been dealing with Green Independent who we spoke to in England at the VIva property exhibition - what got us into all this in the first place!  They have been quite good and got a couple of deals that offer flexibility in interest only periods that they say are likely to be longer than those offered by the developers mortgage (up to 7 / 10 years).  I don't know enough about the subject to judge whether they're correct or not. 

We never hear anything from our solicitor and he's pretty useless about returning calls too.  Much like the UK really - apologies to any lawyers out there!

Hi everybody,

                I bet you are all eagerly awating news of 'habitation licence',just like we are. Well we heard from our solicitor at the end of last week ,and in readiness for completion they have sent us a final estimate of their charges.Interestingly this included a fee of 1000euros for 'cancellation of builders mortgage fee'. 

               Well, in our case we had never indicated that we would take the builders' mortgage, & there is no reference to it in our contract. We do not intend to take the option of the builders mortgage , & have made other financial arrangements.

              It is our intention to decline to pay this , and we would welcome the views of other purchasers of DJ who are in a similar position to us. We have been informed that it is illegal to demand this fee, and our solicitor has also indicated that this is the case.

              Replies please.     the more the merrier.!!!

              

 

 

Hi Janmet, As you say this is infact an illegal clause as has been confirmed by my solicitor. I remember someone on this board posting that they had succesfully managed to get Arrohabitatge to back down on this charge so get your solicitor to ensure that this amount is not paid.