Maternity/mortgage advice please

alexnic15

Hi guys,

We've just had an offer accepted on our first home, fingers crossed everything goes ok as we love it....

Basically my wife begins maternity in a couple of months time and we were umming and ahhing about what our best bet would be for mortgage terms...

There are a lot of attractive offers out there with discounted variable rates for a couple of years, however they do not provide the stability of a fixed rate...

Basically we're in two minds whether to go for a low discount for 2 years in the hope we can then fix (hopefully for five years at almost certainly a higher rate) once she's back at work and earning again... or should we bite the bullet now, lock into a rate for five years and just try and get through the next 18 months as well as we can....

Anyone have any experience or advice, would be really appreciated!

FWIW we have a £22k deposit and hoping to borrow £180k...

Many thanks for your time!

Scary this, isn't it!? Very grown up!

amnblog

These are things you should discuss with your mortgage broker.


If you are not using one - get one.

kingstreet

How have you got to the point of having an offer accepted without boxing-off the maternity leave issue with a mortgage lender?

This is a knotty subject with some lenders not taking her income into account at all; others asking for proof of savings during maternity leave; the question of childcare costs coming later and so on.

Since this time last year, there is a requirement to disclose any material change in circumstances which may affect affordability so keeping quiet is no longer an option.