Unless it's changed in the past 5 years, Caz is right. A minimal policy is a legal requirement for a mortgage. At least it was when I worked at the bank...

Well I took my mortgage out in 2007 and didnt take any life Insurance out

I've had my mortgage for over 5 years with no life insurance needed as well

I thought you have to have buildings insurance incase the house burnt down, but you weren't required to have anything else.

And it has to be the rebuilding value rather than the value of the house.

I don't know anyone who took out life insurance either.

I think it is more necessary when you have a partner, it is so it clears the mortgage, so would normally be written in trust. It is not essential but can solve some potential problems.

If you have an "Other half" / familty then you need some Insurance. However we didn't as we get death in service and that would clear it off. I can use the £20 / m saving to overpay the mtg

Okay so I've had other things on my mind and not had a chance to think about this for a while. Now that I'm on annual leave, I decided to ring my bank to work out what my options were.

1. £30k deposit, mortgage would be £214k which means a monthly payment of £1500-1600 over 25 years.
2. £12.5k deposit, mortgage would be £237k which means £1100-1200 per month. This is based on the 95% mortgage deal for FTB.

Apparently it's not a Govt loan but just that if I sold the house and there was a shortfall, the Govt would be responsible for up to 20% of it. A bit confusing as that appears contrary to what I've read about.

Help To Buy 1 was a loan to the house buyer to offset the demand for large deposits. That scheme was closed a while back. Help To Buy 2 is the loan guarantee you've been told. As you've probably figured out, help to buy 2 is actually very little 'help to buy' for you but quite a lot of 'help to profit' to the banks.

Explains some of the confusion. Thanks.

A bit wierd that the higher mortgage has a lower replayment - whats the interest charge on the two loans

Also (assuming they are correct) can you take out loan 2 and them make a replayment of £17.5K so reducing the mortgage while keeping the better rate. I had this with 1st Direct when I took out my Mtg - they offered a cheaper rate if you had a bigger mortgage and I was right at the break point so upped the mtg by £2K to get the extra 0.3% off the mtg (for life) and then immediatly repaid the £2K back as there war no earley / lump sum repayment penalties

Okay so before Xmas, I was toying with the idea of a house. I had my eye on one but never got round to viewing it. It appeared to be sold STC and then has now come back on the market. How hard should I look as to why the sale fell through (obv could be multiple causes like failed chain, third party couldn't get mortgage etc)? But are there any specific questions I should be asking?

Here's the house I was looking at:

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for ... 96727.html

Nice! Though I'm not sure what the market's like in England and ours is bollocksed, is the asking price maybe a little too high?

I know, location, location, location and all that other jazz...

I am sure it was priced at £235k before. It's in the "posher" area of Birmingham (technically Solihull) whereas you could buy for £80k in the rougher areas.