Mortgage Option

Hi,

We are in the process of trying to sort out our mortgage. Visited a few banks while in Mojacar area recently and got some good info. The two that impressed us most were Cambank and Bancaja.

Bancaja are basically offering us the mortgage, with 6 months interest only, then the remainder at Euribor + 0.7% with a 1% opening comission. Thats if we take a life insurance with them. Cam are offering +1% (which seems to be the rate most banks are offering us).

Any opinions on this? Are bancaja any good - they seem to offer lots of promises, and have english literature.

Cheers.

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A great deal depends on what you want but make sure that what you get now suits you for the term of the mortgage. Remortgage here is horrendously costly generally (typically 5% of the loan).

Life insurance unless you live here is extremely bad advice - it becomes subject to Spanish IHT - also more exclusions than UK life cover and generally speaking more costly.

Subject to age, status and exactly what want you can get up to 25 years interest only - no early repayment penalties - no compulsory life cover - Bancaja generally ok but few English speaking staff - especially for telephone enquiries after completion.

CAM are ok but have had problems and generally will insist on life cover as well.

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Thanks Smiley.

Also spotted Barclays have +0.7% deals. Maybe thats a better option?

It says reviewed anually though. Not sure if that means they reset the Euribor rate anually, or the 0.7%. Also, says up to 80% LTV which could be helpful - no mention of any compulsory insurances.

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Annual Euribor means the rate is set on the date of completion and then revised annually (i.e it is a rollong one year fixed rate). Barclays insist on life cover for all their clients -

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Its all starting to my head in to be honest :)

Is the +0.7% mark the best offering at the moment?

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Why dont you give Smiley a call - he can advise you honestly and has helped a lot of our members when they need finance. I do know he can get offers from banks that individuals cant and can in some cases ensure you arent strapped with something you dont need

Good luck!

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Depends on what you want - and your income etc - too many options to say what is best. If you think Bancaja answers all your questions then take it - have you considered the developers mortgage as you will possibly save on start up costs - downside is they are generally pretty inflexible and terms not always that good.

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Thanks Rixxy. Have spoke to a few brokers, and none have come up with deals as good as going direct - at least that how it seems on the face of it.

 

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If theyve been around long enough and pass enough business then they can get a friendly ear of a bmanager - otherwise its a minefield - I know after buying my onw place last year how blitzed I felt with it - and Im in the property business!

Spain is very much who you know as opposed to what you know!!

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can i just ask.. should my 'independent' mortgage broker be trying more than one bank and one mortage option as my representative.  My mortgage offer is very disappointing and it seems they are saying take it or leave it.  If i decide i don't want it then i have to start over going direct looking for a mortgage just before completion which is imminent. They say i don't have to have it but their part will be over then and annual fees i paid them seem to have been just for one offer from one individual bank. G E bank

suzanne

sorry if i sound a little stupid here

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Suzanne

We were in a similar predicament back in the summer. Our broker just wasn't working for us at all. we were given notice that we could complete from the 20th July onwards & they just messed us about & didn't move things forward at all.

Finally, we bit the bullet & ditched them. We enquired through WWW.Mortgage4Spain.com who advertise on EOS & within 48 hours of us faxing through payslips, bank statements etc we had a formal offer from the bank. Unfortunately due to other issues it took some additional time to actually get to completion on the 18th October. However, none of these issues related to the broker or the Bank.

I cannot recommend this company highly enough. We dealt with Stefan Onsmark who was the most efficient & concientious person we dealt with throughout the whole process. Why not email him one of their enquiry forms & see what he says. When I did this, I had an answer the next day & an agreement in principle to go with it.

Hope you get sorted out.

Noreen

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Hi Pepes, it does sound strange you only have one option but it will depend on your circumstances and what you have given them

Some brokers have a good reputation with banks and pass good clienmts and therefore have more leeway than others who pass not so good clients who default etc.

Spain is very much who you know as opposed to what you know.

Certainly you would be advised to speak to several brokers then go with the best option and whoever you are comfortable with. Good brokers hold your hand all the way through the process and even go to notary with you - I know Smiley does. I havent had dealings with the ones Noreen has dealt with but she is happy with them as well, recommendations are usually everything

Good luck, speak to a couple of others - it wont cost you anything except an hour or two of your time, and as remortgaging in Spain is so expensive, you wuold be well advised to get it right the first time around. They should take into account all your circumstances, including inhertitance tax issues.

The one you are with may only be registered with a couple of banks as opposed to a range of them

Good luck

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Hi Superdon,

The Barclays margin goes up depending on term and interest only period and the 70% LTV mark you could be paying E + 1.25 also at 80% LTV the rate is E +1.5%.

Regards, 

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Hi Peps,

Why is your mortgage offer 'disappointing'? Is it not what you were expecting? Your broker should have discussed a range of products based on your criteria / requirements and best for you that YOU choose, before obtaining a mortgage offer for you and this offer should be exactly what you were expecting!  It is not strange to have one mortgage offer, and this should be the one that is suitable to your circumstances - I would only expect a broker to obtain more than one offer if they were not confident you would  be approved for your chosen product.   The GE product is not a bad one especially at 80% LTV and up to 10 years Interest Only, but of course there are other options out there.     Also why are you paying your broker an annual fee??  

Regards,

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Peps couldnt agree more with Sharon, to  be honest we always discuss a clients requirements and what matters most to them.

We will recommend the product most suitable to the client needs and situation and generally would hope to offer a choice of two or three owing to remortgage here being so costly so that you can consider what is most improtant to you today and for the life of the loan (important to get it right first time so that you dont need to remortgage). If the GE deal suits you (they should have notified you of the terms of the deal) then probably best to take it. We will only submit the application to a multiple of lenders if we think the clients first choice might be ruled out for some reason such as income - there are occasions that with the right persuasion and presentation we might be able to twist a lenders arm if they dont meet criteria exactly - in those instances we will dual run it with another lender so that we have a card up our sleeve in the event first choice doesnt get approved. There may of course be another reason for going to GE in that they calculate income (ability to pay) in a slightly different way to other lenders but to be honest if you were dealing with us we would have explained that to you.

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The annual fee was a couple hundred euros so they could 'keep us updated on all the best products' and 'search a wide range of products on the market on your behalf'. I take it this is not normal then to pay broker fees up front to 'join and become a client'. We were taken there by the agents who sold us our apt 14months ago and had an offer in principal last year.  However, as completion has been delayed we have had to keep updating our details but were only ever offered one mortgage from GE.  We have now only been offered 70% ltv for some reason and we were told a valuation six months ago 40,000 euros below what it has actually come in now for completion.  This now leaves us 23,000 short for completion which we will have to pay.  We don't mind having to pay this but were initially told it would be fine at 80%. 40,000 seems a big drop in valuation in just six months and then to change to 70% ltv. 

I think the mortgage itself is not a bad one, just not sure if the broker has been straight with us and is tied to this particular bank to get a better deal for them commission wise.  I don't know how it works properly over there even tho i have throughly researched and tried to understand.

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i don't think there should be any problems regarding income and status etc smiley.  other than that i am self employed maybe, but we were then advised to do the spanish mortgage just in my partners name so that self employment wasn't a problem.  we paid the 30% cash, on time and provided everything requested. 

i understand details are needed to give individual advise but i just wondered if it sounded something not right to you lot regarding brokerage 

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Peps - no agent or broker should ask you to pay up front - even if they charge a fee it tends to be on completion.

With regards to the rest I can tell you from experience that information is changing daily from the banks as they are running scared and tightening up on criteria

One of the professionals on here would be better than I to answer about dropping to 70% ltv but it may be because you cannot get more than the purchase contract price now, so valuation sometimes doesnt quite come into it!

It is a complicated issue and as I stated above, one of the professionals would be better to advise you as they should explain everything fully to you in a long detailed conversation!

Why dont you call one of them?

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Is the broker CFP - if so part of MRI - have heard of them having a mortgage club where mortgage is reviewed periodically - as I said in the prvious post ideally you wont want to review it as it is so costly to do so here. GE have also revised lending policy in the last 8 months or so - they will advance to 80% of valuation restricted to 90% of purchase price on off plan. To be fair it is not their fault the valuation has come in low - if the company that sold you the property were indicating valuations at a higher level and you were convinced of that by them that is not the banks fault nor to be fair the fault of the broker - it is more that the product you have bought is overpriced. It isnt the first time and it wont be the last. Nobody will know how a property is going to value until the valuer does his visit - it is possible to get a rough idea on previous valuations but that is all that it is. Have you by chance bought in Vera?   

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No, its duquesa.

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