Small Mortgage

[Ronan]

Bonjour to all of you! This is my first post here so be kind! :-)

I'm French and have been living in the UK for the past 13 years. My partner is British and we are thinking about buying a house in France. More than thinking in fact, as we have have made a proposal to purchase the house we want: it's the house next to my mother's résidence secondaire in Brittany, it's current owner is "sous tutelle" which means a person manages his affairs and his house will be put onto the market in a few months, because of our proposal, we should have "first pick" when that happens.

The house is relatively cheap and we'll only need a €30K to €40K mortgage. This is below the threshold of most lenders. A broker couldn't help us because of this and recommended we contacted Britline. However, we have already a Crédit Agricole account (though not in the britline "branch") and are checking with them if they'd loan that sort of amount. Anybody knows?

We bank with HSBC in the UK and are in the process of opening a account in their group's representative in France (CCF) to facilitate transfers. CCF cannot lend us that small amount as a mortgage but mention it might be possible to arrange through our bank manager as a loan.

Any of you had any experience in getting that sort of amount? How did you eventually do it?

Thanks in advance for your help and I'm sure you'll get a chance to read all about our purchase on here as and when it happens!

[Opalienne]

We had a mortgage of approx €30k through UCB - but it was 11 years ago, so things may have changed.   But I would try them just in case.   Otherwise I'm fairly sure that you could get a loan through a French bank without a problem.

[Nick Trollope]

With interest rates at sub 4%, I can see why banks wouldn't be bothered with the cost of lending 30K - they wouldn't make any money!

A 30K loan is small beer nowadays & can be arranged in a few days (at a rate not much higher than a mortgage).

 

[RogerW]

Have a look at the Yorkshire Building Society Offset Tracker Mortgage (Bank of England base rate plus 0.75%).

www.ybs.co.uk

Their minimum loan is £25k and there are no fees and no penalties for early repayment.

If £25k still leaves you with a surplus, you could either put it in the offset savings account as 'rainy day money' and save the interest on your mortgage, or repay it immediately with no penalty. The only snag is that the mortgage has to be secured against a UK property.

Hope this helps,

Roger.