Who's classed as First Time Buyers?

maturelearner

Approximately 10 years ago after selling a property with an abusive ex I was told I was classed as a First Time Buyer again by my main Bank at the time, as I had no other property.

I now have a new partner and daughter. My partner and I both have had mortgages in the past and are now currently renting and have been for 8 years. I still have modest saving from the property sale 10 years ago. My partner unfortunately did have serious debt issues in the past but was able to sell his property and clear the majority of debts 15+ years ago. On his last Experian credit check his rating was low only because he has little credit currently because Gas/Elec Water etc are in my name and he doesn't have a credit card or credit accounts. No debts were shown.

So my question is would we be classed as First Time Buyers now or not?

I am querying because I know we're not entitled to Help to Buy ISAs and are considering buying.

Thrugelmir

Any particular reason for wanting to be classified as a FTB?

maturelearner

Not particularly, just wanting to search out what's available. My current bank seems to want 20% deposit but I'd have around 15% max on the properties we're interested in. Unless you're a first time buyer which only requires 10%.

sieve

I think that if you don't have a current mortgage you would fall into the FTB category. It's happened to me twice before, anyway, and nobody said anything as the options were either 'FTB', 'Moving Home' or 'Remortgaging'. I wasn't remortgaging or moving, so FTB was the only option!

Jennyl

Depends on the lender.

I haven't owned a property for 4 years, Nationwide now class me as a FTB but Halifax don't.

In the eyes of the Government, to qualify for things like the Help to Buy ISA's, I am not a FTB.