Partner with foreign property

leereni

My partner has a small flat in her country of origin. We are looking at buying a flat in about a year or so. Obviously this would exempt us from being a first time buyer. But, would having a flat which is almost paid off help with getting a mortgage for a flat here? Flat she has is only worth about £30,000.

CLAPTON

if you sell it and have 30k cash then yes otherwise no

leereni

Would it at least help with credit scoring for the mortgage application?

CLAPTON

basically no

even if it were in the UK it wouldn't make any difference unless it produces an income that could be taken into consideration for affordablility purposes

GMS

Having a mortgage which is being well maintained on your credit search would boost scoring but as it is non UK then it will not show up.

leereni

So what you are saying is that I wouldn't benefit from being a first ime buyer and also wouldn't benefit from showing there is equity in another property

kingstreet

Being a first time buyer will get you a mortgage product with a benefit of perhaps £300 to £400 over a subsequent purchaser deal. You might get a free valuation, or a contribution towards your legal costs.

The days of first time buyers being viewed as the be-all and end-all for lenders are long over.

Another property doesn't help a lender avoid the risk of lending. If it's overseas I'm not even sure they'd be able to verify ownership to their satisfaction even if owning another property was of help to you.

The key issues for all types of borrower, more than ever in the last few years are;-

- deposit
- income/affordability
- credit status.