Co-operative Mortgage - Not a happy bunny

payless

Obviously with a "normal" mortgage you will have a wider choice of lenders ( subject tio deposit size) , and not all ( but some) will automatically say married couple = joint mortgage , but its getting more common + its still a possibility that the underwriter will question/ look into further and poss decline based on your history even on a sole mortgage .

Lindy_Loo_3

Thank you everyone for your responses, we will just continue saving and forget the Ownhome scheme and the Cooperative mortgage.

Who knows, maybe we'll save enough to buy a house outright if the market actually crashes! Only joking, but seriously, thanks to all who took the time to reply, and sorry if I got touchy at any point.

x

Cannon_Fodder

Lindy_Loo wrote: »

I didn't know that. We have always had seperate account and the only thing we share is a surname and child

Could you elaborate more please? Thanks

...and a marriage certificate...?

Lindy_Loo_3

Cannon_Fodder wrote: »

...and a marriage certificate...?

Oops! Forgot about that but kinda was covered under "surname".

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FraudBuster

Folks fought long and hard for married women to have rights. The first reference I can find is The Married Women's Property Act 1870.

payless

as you do have a child together - Are you sure you ( or partner ) don't get tax credits ??? ( yet another financial link) .. otherwise I guess the household income is fairly high !

Conrad

Lindy, a lot of people are missing the fundamental reason for the decline, so I will try to shed some light on the matter.

The reason for the decline is 'standard practice'. Lenders deem that a married spouse has a SIGNIFICANT influence on the household finances.

Nothing can circumvent or attenuate this principle.

Having said this, there are potential lenders that might help, but you need to approach this in the following manner;

1) Recognise an AGREEMENT IN PRINCIPLE is worthless

2) Know that your case needs individual underwriting by a Human underwriter. A computer generated AIP will have assumptions built into the programme. For example the software will 'assume' you are splitting up and can prove this if asked.

A decent experienced broker will be able to help you further - but if he's fees free, you need to question whether he will want to sit on the phone for hours to underwriters - would you, knowing there is only a chance of being paid at end?

gizmo111

We don't receive any tax credits as I do not work more than 16 hours a week.

Only one of you has to work morethan 16 hours a week.
Check it here www.entitledto.co.uk

Lindy_Loo_3

gizmo111 wrote: »

Only one of you has to work morethan 16 hours a week.
Check it here www.entitledto.co.uk

Thank you for the link. We'll look into it. To be honest, we assumed that we wouldn't be entitled to much as my husband is on £32k and depending on my work I earn about £6.50 per hour. We can afford to live without the credits and have never claimed benefits other than Child Benefit and feel it's a bit cheeky if we don't need them. I suppose on the other side of the coin if you're entitled to them you should have no problem with claiming them . . . .

We are considering using a broker if we really want to pursue this but I get the general feeling that it's probably a no go. Having spoken to the Halifax mortgage advisor they are quite confident that with the right waivers they will agree a mortgage for my husband but then the Co-op initially said that too so I'm not pinning my hopes on anything.

Once again, thank you to all posters for their advice. It really has helped me to understand the process and reasoning a bit better.

Lindy_Loo_3

payless wrote: »

as you do have a child together - Are you sure you ( or partner ) don't get tax credits ??? ( yet another financial link) .. otherwise I guess the household income is fairly high !

Just to reiterate, we don't claim any tax credits. Is that really hard to believe or are we just stupid? Not being rude but personally I feel a slight stigma is attached to claiming all these benefits when we can quite clearly afford not to.

I do not have a permanent role (one of the reasons why we'd like a permanent home so that I can try and get a permanent job) which I think is a requirement anyway in order to claim these credits. Our parents have always helped us with childcare and the OH earns more than enough to cover the afternoons that our child attends nursery when I do work.

That's honestly how we get along.

EDIT: Also, thank you Conrad for answering the essential question. Would we be allowed to speak to the underwriters directly? We have nothing to hide, never had, and are willing to give all the information they may require.

Thank you again