First Direct - consent to let

Vmd_2

As promised, here's the conclusion of my discussions with First Direct. After speaking with another adviser I was told that having rent-a-room was no problem, provided it was just with 1 lodger. So I went ahead with the mortgage application (which obviously requires spending quite a few hours gathering the relevant paperwork, proofs of id, filling in forms, etc), and sent that off.

Now I've received a call to state that we cannot have a mortgage because (a) we receive somewhat more than the £4250 exemption limit from rent-a-room (above which the government gives two different ways to pay tax, so no problems for HMRC but somehow big problems for First Direct), and (b) because we have a signed agreement with our lodger.

First Direct will only offer a mortgage to those who have handshake agreements with their lodger, not anyone who takes sensible precautions of having a simple signed agreement! And I thought banks were supposed to preach financial responsibility...

First Direct won't budge from this position so they have wasted several hours of our time for no good reason.

Hopefully the above the can save someone else the aggravation of dealing with FD's peculiar bureaucracy...