Mortgage applications and pregnancy

tenerifa

Hi there, I was wondering if anyone has any recent experience/advice relating to applying for a mortgage when pregnant?

I got a mortgage offer from Natwest pre-pregnancy, but our purchase is falling through so we are back to the drawing board.

This time around, however, I am pregnant. I am the main earner and the mortgage is in my name, based on my earnings. I will return to work full time after six months maternity leave. (Baby due early January.)

I'm worried that given the new, tighter rules, they might not give me a mortgage/only allow me to borrow a smaller amount/give me worse terms.

Does anyone know about this? Do I have to declare that I am pregnant?

Many thanks!

Kirstyb1987

I have to admit, as your only earlyish days (massive congratulations by the way) I would be tempted to keep it quiet!

chanz4

if you can afford it, cant see what difference it will make

kingstreet

Check lender affordability calculators with an without the additional dependent to see if the amount you want to borrow remains affordable.

You should now disclose any change in your circumstances to your potential lender.

jjlandlord

You may have in principle to disclose changes to your financial situation like new dependant or change of income (though maternity leave is just temporary, IMHO).

But I would not disclose pregnancy in itself as it is a "protected characteristic" under the Equality Act 2010.

jvpari

I got a mortgage two years ago in my name when heavily pregnant. Our mortgage advisor just stuck his fingers in his ears and said as long as we could afford the repayments!

Kynthia

I'm the main earner and recently got a joint mortgage. We told our independent broker and he said different mortgage companies react differently. Do you have a broker or are you applying direct?

Sparx

Think and look very hard at your income & outgoings. If you can still afford to pay the mortgage still while on maternity, I would keep quiet personally.

Thrugelmir

tenerifa wrote: »

I'm worried that given the new, tighter rules, they might not give me a mortgage/only allow me to borrow a smaller amount/give me worse terms.

Better that you budget sensibly. Over stretching may appear to be the clever option. However your the ones that will suffer with quality of life. As the rules themselves are not over onerous and in a common sense way protect people from themselves.

Cookie124

I've recently applied for a mortgage at 36 weeks pregnant and the paperwork asked if there are likely to be any changes in financial circumstances so I felt that being so far along I had to declare it. The first mortgage I applied for was with virgin and after putting all my details into their affordability calculator it was fine. However the application was declined and after speaking to virgin they told me that they base it on the lowest amount of pay you recieve whilst on maternity leave, so as I was taking a year and having three months with no pay, they put my income in as nothing! (Never mind that it averaged out at half pay over the year and I'd still have 10k left in savings after house purchase). Even with my partners pay they refused to lend us anything, so probably best to stay clear of them.

I ended up employing a mortgage advisor as I didn't want to trash my credit rating applying for lots of mortgages only to be turned down due to maternity leave. She advised that both Natwest and the Leeds would be ok with maternity leave. We ended up going with NatWest and they've approved a mortgage for us based on my full salary amount, so if you already had a mortgage approved by them I would try them again.

Julesb

I believe it would class as discrimination if lenders penalise you due to pregnancy / maternity leave and they should base the mortgage offer on your salary and not your maternity pay. I recently got a mortgage with woolwich whilst on maternity leave and just had to provide a letter from my employer saying I was on maternity leave, had a job paying xxx and was due back on x date on the same t&c. I also showed evidence I had funds to cover the period of statutory mat pay although they didn't ask for this.
They may reduce the amount offered based on potential future childcare costs though.