Declare post maternity salary on mortgage application?

EHJK

Hello everyone.

My wife is currently on maternity leave and has a letter from her employer stating her returning salary and intended return to work date for the end of April 2013. We may extend the maternity leave by a couple of months, or potentially not return to that particular permanent part-time position (teaching), instead providing supply (agency) work as a teacher.

If I was to submit a mortgage application (80% LTV) on my salary alone then the affordability calculations show the loan amount is within affordability - just within affordability I might add. So I was tempted to submit the application like that based on the uncertainty of what arrangement my wife will decide to return on, but officially right now she has a return salary & date documented.
Would it be wise to include my wife's salary on the application with this uncertainty? It is all official and may even happen that she goes back in April, but last thing I want is to give false information. My wife's salary added shows the loan amount is "easily affordable".
The only issue I see is most applications don't give you the opportunity to add notes to a declared salary that it is not currently being received, only statutory maternity pay was for the last few months.
I hear that some lenders will not discriminate against those on maternity leave, but it was a passing comment I heard.

Any advice?
Anyone else been in a similar position?

Thrugelmir

Whilst an employer has to leave a position open. There's no guarantee that an individual will return to their former position. So lenders will consider this when considering an application. Having a dependent will impact affordability calculations.

EHJK

Both of our dependents were noted on the affordability calculator; I noticed it having an impact on the recommended loan amount figure.

Yorkie1

Even if it isn't fraud to declare something in the application which you don't know to be what you plan to do, I'd have thought that it could cause more stress down the line to input your OH's salary & return date as part of the application.

If you declare it, and the situation subsequently changes before completion, it is a material fact which the lender would want to know - and could indeed check up on before releasing funds. You don't want the stress of the mortgage going back to the underwriters or even being pulled, at a later stage of the process.

bigadaj

EHJK wrote: »

Both of our dependents were noted on the affordability calculator; I noticed it having an impact on the recommended loan amount figure.

I think thrug was referring to your wife, as if she was not to go back to work, then she would be a dependent as well as your children.

EHJK

Ah, okay. The calculator I used doesn't allow you to differentiate like that, there are two options: adults party to the mortgage, and dependent children.