Barclays / woolwich are they picky?

basscadette

Ok we're looking to buy a house that will cost (hopefully) £138k. We want to go for the 75% Barclays 5 yr fix @ 3.09% and I was going to apply myself as I usually would. However, I wanted to see if anyone could help first with the likelihood of being rejected by barclays? Maybe someone has recent experience or a broker has an idea of how they are currently under the new rules.

We are applying for a joint mortgage - but only my husbands income & child benefit should be taken into account. I went self-employed at the end of 2010 whilst still working, then maternity leave, then a little bit of self employed work then maternity leave again - so my self employed income will be impossible to verify. We are setting my income as zero and putting my husbands salary as our only income for the purposes of the mortgage as this should be enough for what we want to borrow (between 104k and 114k). We considered saying I was a housewife to avoid the uneccessary worry over verifying my non-existant profits but wondered if that would be worse than putting zero? In reality, my earnings are greater than zero but so patchy as to be not even worth counting at the moment. I just wondered if this kind of scenario would create a problem with Barclays? There is no real problem but there doesn't seem to be a way to say the second applicant's income should not be taken into account.

Other than that, we have no adverse credit history, no defaults or late payments, no overdraft (we have gone in by a few pence or so whilst using cash to renovate our current place but our limit is 2k and we've used about 80p at most!). We do have 7k on 0% Balance Transfer cards but no other debt apart from our current mortgage.

I checked my credit file and my score was 984/1000. Husbands will be similar.

Any advice on Barclays? Or a better option less likely to turn us down but with an equally good rate?

Many thanks in advance if anyone has any advice. I don't want to waste an application if it will be a guaranteed 'no'.

basscadette

PS husband earns 41k gross. 165£pm student loan and 129£ gross in childcare vouchers, if that helps the overview. The childcare payments will stop in january when the mortgage should complete though.

kingstreet

Can't abide Barclays.

Get a shudder when I realise we have to use them for something.

I've never found it difficult to justify using someone else for cost, rate or service reasons...

ACG

As an applicant they do not have to deal with MAX/Scan and send/people who you cant have a conversation with.

Have you checked the affordability calculator to ensure it fits?
Nothing wrong with putting your income down as £0 if it is not needed.

kingstreet

You certify it, scan it and send it securely, as they insist.

Then, their third party firm prints it and re-scans it, so by the time it reaches its destination, it's illegible.

Absolutely barking.

NatWest does the same thing.

amnblog

The Barclays product is a good one but there are a couple of other options with other lenders that may be slightly better.


We use Barclays regularly and from what you have said I suspect we would be presenting you as not working.


Unless you are a particularly patient person and your kids sleep like angels for hours at a time I suggest you engage a mortgage broker.

amnblog

kingstreet wrote: »

You certify it, scan it and send it securely, as they insist.

Then, their third party firm prints it and re-scans it, so by the time it reaches its destination, it's illegible.

Absolutely barking.

NatWest does the same thing.

Under the new system you can go online and see how illegible it has become!

ACG

I have found a new fantastic way of getting my documents to natwest.

Go into my local RBS hand them an envelope and ask them to send internal mail. Its guaranteed to get there, its guaranteed to be legible and if something goes wrong you can guarantee its their fault - not royal mails, BTs, the fax manufacturer or anyone elses - god love the modern era!

basscadette

I considered using a broker but I have had a bad experience in the past! He found the best mortgage for him not us. He found a high rate, high fee lloyds horror whilst we got a low % fix from the post office doing it ourselves. He was furious we didn't go with his choice.

Obviously I don't have a bad opinion of brokers or I wouldn't be asking here for advice, but at least I know there's a good level of knowledge on here. We are keen to get a very good rate since we have a 25% deposit so I don't want to pay more to cover a fee if you know what I mean.

basscadette

amnblog - which other lenders would you suggest in this scenario?
Happy to say I'm unemployed - I just didn't want to lie and say I was unemployed when I am registered as SE with HMRC in case my 'lies' went against us - even though it would be the opposite of trying to defraud.

ACG

You can put down any occupation you like, but just put your income down as £0 or you can put unemployed.

the only lies they are really interested in are ones where it puts you in a better lie than the truth. By declaring no income you are just doing what is expected really.