Buyer's Guide to the USA (Florida)

The process of buying a holiday home in Florida is not the same as in Britain, so you won't be surprised that the process of funding it, especially with a British mortgage is a bit different too. Much of it, though, will be recognisable to you if you have previously bought a property in the UK.

IMS can arrange mortgages through specialist mortgage lenders who are both US and UK based.

Next steps

Once you have found your ideal property IMS can help you to identify the best mortgage product to suit your personal circumstances and then submit an application into the lender to obtain first and an Agreement in Principle and then take you through to completion via the steps below.

What happens next

An Agreement in Principle is issued to you by the lender.
Statutory disclosures will be sent to you, such as the Truth-in-Lending Act Disclosure statement, which allows you to see the terms of the loan in a standard format, thus making comparisons easier. We will also supply you with a Good Faith Estimate of closing costs, which estimates all the likely charges.
A valuation report (known in the US as an Appraisal Report) and Flood Certificate (see glossary of terms for definition) are requested on your proposed Florida holiday home.
A Title Company is instructed to ensure that there is no difficulty with the title of the property you are buying. If satisfied with their enquires, the Title Company will issue a title commitment that every thing is in order and this will be sent to us.
The Intermediary will contact you with a final estimate of closing costs and obtain your agreement to proceed.
We then will issue you with a formal mortgage offer (known in the US as a "commitment letter").
Documentation including a Dept of Housing and Urban Development settlement statement (HUD-1) and the Mortgage and Loan Note are issued by the Title Company and the documents sent to you in Britain.
The Mortgage will be signed by you and notarized (witnessed by a Notary) and sent to the Title Company for formal registration at the appropriate Registration office in Florida. The Loan Note, once signed by you should be sent to us.
The advance is then sent to the closing agents to complete the pur chase of your home in Florida.