Getting a mortgage when pregnant

ty_gooden

Apologies if this has already been answered somewhere else in the forum.

My wife and I sold our house in Jan 06 and have been renting while we look for another house. We have just discovered that she is pregnant. Do mortgage lenders take pregnancy into account when deciding how much they will lend you?

The amount we wished to borrow was well under the 'normal' amount for our joint salaries but represents about 4.5-5x mine alone. The deposit we would have would be around 25% of the value of the house

MortgageMamma

Technically a lender will not see this as a problem if your partner is presently employed, entitled to maternity pay and plans to return to the same job on the same earnings after the baby is born. Assuming you do not wish to take this route there are mortgages at competitive rates presently that will allow you up to 4.7 x your salary minus your monthly credit commitments x 12.

herbiesjp

Agree with MM - as long as your partner is going back to her work after her maternity leave then most lenders will be fine with the scenario.

However you indeed raise a very important question about affordability after baby is born should your partner not go back to work - I think this is where you would need to discuss your requirements witha whole of market mortgage adviser to see if they can help find a scheme that best suits your situation

ty_gooden

Thanks for the replies.

The reality is that she probably would not be going back on a full time basis and her company are unlikely to allow her to work part time. However, it is likely that she would seek part time work elsewhere.

She would recieve the full statutory maternity leave.

Realistically we are only interested in 5 year fixed rate deals.

How would disclosing this affect our situation?

It's very difficult to predict what we are going to be doing in 12 months time, she may end up working full time after all!