Mortgages and maternity pay!

Wcr03

Hi, was wondering if anyone could help me.

My wife and I are currently looking to move home, we have sold our home and this is close to completion. Luckily we have somewhere to move into temporarily as there will be a lag between the sale and our potential purchase.

We are looking to port our mortgage with Santander who who seem to want make like as difficult as possible.

The problem......my wife is on maternity for the next 8 months. Initially the mortgage advisor asked for evidence as to how we would cover the shortfall whilst my wife is on maternity. This along with a letter from her employer to confirm her return date - which is not an issue.

Easy I thought as the shortfall is only a couple of hundred pounds per month as she will receive SMP and given that she normally only works part time earning around £12k pa. in my mind a total shortfall of around £2000.

No, Santander are asking us to prove we can cover the whole amount of her salary for the full 8 months -around £7000. I feel they are just being obstructive in asking us to cover a 'shortfall' which won't exist.

Whilst we are not far off covering the full amount, this might delay us a couple of months and lose us the opportunity to port out mortgage.

Is what they are asking for right or should SMP be taken into account? I haven't got a clue. Just feels like some stuck up kid making up the rules as he goes along!:mad:

ACG

Is maternity pay £10k pa? (I genuinely do not know the answer to that).

If it is then I would agree with you in that their request seems odd (to put it mildly). I would probably be on the phone to them to query this.

Monday123

That sounds odd. Are you 100% sure they are asking about the entire salary?

I have recently been in a similar position but with another lender - I was asked over the phone by the underwriter how I would support myself during mat leave and I just said I'd use my savings (which they didn't even ask to verify).

notanewuser

ACG wrote: »

Is maternity pay £10k pa? (I genuinely do not know the answer to that).

If it is then I would agree with you in that their request seems odd (to put it mildly). I would probably be on the phone to them to query this.

On £12k per year, SMP would be around £5,800.

ACG

So there is actually an income shortfall of £6,200 approx then?

Thats obviously a little bit of a bigger gap and its starting to look a little more understandable. How reliant are you on your partners income for the mortgage (in the eyes of santander)?

I would be on the calculator playing around with the figures to see whether they would lend you the money on your income alone.

Paully232000

Wcr03 wrote: »

Hi, was wondering if anyone could help me.

My wife and I are currently looking to move home, we have sold our home and this is close to completion. Luckily we have somewhere to move into temporarily as there will be a lag between the sale and our potential purchase.

We are looking to port our mortgage with Santander who who seem to want make like as difficult as possible.

The problem......my wife is on maternity for the next 8 months. Initially the mortgage advisor asked for evidence as to how we would cover the shortfall whilst my wife is on maternity. This along with a letter from her employer to confirm her return date - which is not an issue.

Easy I thought as the shortfall is only a couple of hundred pounds per month as she will receive SMP and given that she normally only works part time earning around £12k pa. in my mind a total shortfall of around £2000.

No, Santander are asking us to prove we can cover the whole amount of her salary for the full 8 months -around £7000. I feel they are just being obstructive in asking us to cover a 'shortfall' which won't exist.

Whilst we are not far off covering the full amount, this might delay us a couple of months and lose us the opportunity to port out mortgage.

Is what they are asking for right or should SMP be taken into account? I haven't got a clue. Just feels like some stuck up kid making up the rules as he goes along!:mad:

I dont suspect it is this, it would be right to ask how you are going to pay the mortgage for 8 months given you will have less of a salary. If the shortfall is more like £6k then where is this going to come from.
I think all people on mat leave are asked this, we certainly were, and asked to show proof, and this was even though my other half got 100% salary on mat leave for 6 months, then SMP plus nursery vouchers payed by the company for the other 3 months she had off. Tis a fair question to be asking, especially as there appears to be some confusion as to how much of a drop there will be.

justcat

I think what the OP is getting at is that although her salary is 12K p.a, she will only be off work for 8 months therefore 8k is what he feels they should be basing it on. If the SMP would be £5800 then there would only be a £2200 shortfall across the maternity leave.

Paully232000

Maybe that is what the OP meant, but SMP is about £138/week so for 8 months would be in the region of £4000 so possibly a bit more of a shortfall than they think. of course there could be tax credits on top of that, so the shortfall could be less.

drdpj

For Santander, this is back in December and also porting a mortgage, we had to show that we had sufficient savings (at the point of application) to give us a net monthly income over the maternity leave period equivalent to what we would have if my wife were in full time employment. This was in addition to the letter from the employer detailing maternity pay and return dates.

If your 8 months is 5 months on SMP (£3000ish) and 3 unpaid, then you're starting to get up to £5k gross, but I still can't see how they can want evidence of £7k?

Wcr03

Thanks for all the replies. I think I may have confused things slightly here by not being thorough enough - sorry new to this.

To clarify.
Wifes current take home £850 PM.
SMP approx £550 PM
To me a shortfall of £300pm x 8 = £2400 (slightly less in reality as she gets 90% pay for 3 months)

However the guy I spoke to explained they 'cannot' take SMP into account and we would have to prove we can cover the full amount of my wife's salary - £850 x 8 = £6800.

Just to add injury to insult he asks what our plans are to cover the shortfall when Child Benefit (which does not form part of our application) stops....and he was serious! Our children are 3 years and a few weeks old respectively which gives us approximately 13 years to think about this!

Anyone else think he is just being an !!!!!?

notanewuser

Wcr03 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies. I think I may have confused things slightly here by not being thorough enough - sorry new to this.

To clarify.
Wifes current take home £850 PM.
SMP approx £550 PM
To me a shortfall of £300pm x 8 = £2400 (slightly less in reality as she gets 90% pay for 3 months)

However the guy I spoke to explained they 'cannot' take SMP into account and we would have to prove we can cover the full amount of my wife's salary - £850 x 8 = £6800.

Just to add injury to insult he asks what our plans are to cover the shortfall when Child Benefit (which does not form part of our application) stops....and he was serious! Our children are 3 years and a few weeks old respectively which gives us approximately 13 years to think about this!

Anyone else think he is just being an !!!!!?

Not really. It could be withdrawn at any time.