Putting deposit down before mortgage approved

morrigan2014

Hey guys,

Looking for some advice.

Myself and my husband have been approved in principle for a mortgage however we are waiting to hear back still for our formal mortgage application. We are due to see a house next week that we are very interested in and are wondering can we pay a booking deposit to signal our intention to buy even though we have not yet been formally approved. We will hopefully (!!!) hear back from the bank in the two weeks or so. I know the booking deposit is refundable however in the event that we are not approved (which is unlikely can we get this back?

Has anyone any experience of this or can give any advice? This is all very new to us!

Thanks

cookiecakes

We put our deposit down and the estate agent just needed to see our approval in principle letter. Our bank told us to wait until we had our deposit paid before submitting our full application. There were no probs with it though!

TheDriver

Deposit is refundable, its the contracts you don't sign until all your ducks are in a row

morrigan2014

Thanks for this.

I just rang AIB and they said that they don't do Approval in Principle letter before they receive a full mortgage application. When they approve your application you then get a Sanction in Principle letter.

I have received an Approval in Principle letter from PTSB a few weeks ago so maybe this would be suffice to indicate our intention to buy?

cmssjone

morrigan2014 wrote: »

Thanks for this.

I just rang AIB and they said that they don't do Approval in Principle letter before they receive a full mortgage application. When they approve your application you then get a Sanction in Principle letter.

I have received an Approval in Principle letter from PTSB a few weeks ago so maybe this would be suffice to indicate our intention to buy?

We were in exactly the same situation that you are in now. We went to PTSB, sat down, ran through all the questions, provided them with all the evidence they wanted and were given an Approval in Principle letter. We bid on a house, secured it, paid the (refundable) booking deposit and then started the full mortgage application.

The mortgage adviser said that he couldn't see why there would be any problem in our initial sit down but it took us a long time to achieve full mortgage approval and we had to jump through plenty of hoops. We were turned down the first time but this was overturned on appeal. Fortunately, this delay had no bearing on our transaction but it appeared to us that an "Approval in Principle" letter is not worth the paper it's printed on.

Trish56

The approval in principle from Permanent tsb is not really worth the paper it is written on as it is issued only after a 15 minute chat whereby you answer a questions regarding income/borrowings/savings etc. and you get your approval in principle. For a full offer with them you need to submit all the paperwork plus a household budget and they carry out a credit check (ICB). Many people who have received AIP's did not eventually get full approval due to errors in income, bad credit history, incorrect information. This AIP is handy to get an idea of how much you qualify for however it should not be relied on as a definite for a full approval.

On the other hand if you submit a full application with supporting documentation to AIB you will receive an approval in principle which last's for 6 months giving you time to find a suitable property. This application can be approved with or without a property and only requires a valuation report to receive a full loan offer.

morrigan2014 wrote: »

Thanks for this.

I just rang AIB and they said that they don't do Approval in Principle letter before they receive a full mortgage application. When they approve your application you then get a Sanction in Principle letter.

I have received an Approval in Principle letter from PTSB a few weeks ago so maybe this would be suffice to indicate our intention to buy?