Securing a mortgage but income is paid abroad

Nic_George

amnblog wrote: »

You mean your broker does not access the whole of the market but uses a limited panel?

It would appear so, am happy to chat to another broker who deals with Santander or call them directly myself.

amnblog

It sounds like your current broker is ill equipped to manage your case.

You have already tried direct application and been misinformed by the call centre.

Another broker may be a good idea.

dgtazzman

As said by others, the Santander call center is wrong. Have a good read here:

https://www.santanderforintermediaries.co.uk/products-and-criteria/mortgage-lending-criteria/

I quote from the foreign income section:

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We’ll consider applications where any element of employed income is paid in any of the following foreign currencies:

US Dollar (USD)
Euro (EUR)
Swiss Franc (CHF)
UAE Dirham (AED)
The sterling equivalent must be calculated and discounted by 25% to allow for currency fluctuations. This figure must be input into the £ equivalent field in Introducer Internet.

You must record in the general notes within the Regulation Section in the full mortgage application in Introducer Internet:

Foreign currency amount.
GBP equivalent.
Exchange rate on the day of the calculation.
Date of calculation

---

Many banks decided to stop accepting foreign currency income in April, it was around mid April for Nationwide as that's when they withdrew my offer, quoting changes in lending criteria.

I said to use a broker for Santander as many of the 'lower ranked' people probably don't even know they accept foreign currency income and what their own policies are, at least that was my experience. You can apply for any of their products, they just calculate a 25% handicap into affordability.

There aren't many brokers that HSBC works with, but their staff seem to be better trained as I had no issues at all with them. You can do the application online anyway, so it goes straight to their central mortgage center and the one call I had with some questions came straight from their underwriters, so lines of communication were short and it was easy to explain things to them without having to use a long list of middle men.

P.S. EMCD doesn't ban mortgages on foreign income or anything, just sets out directives to fulfill money laundering checks on foreign income, which it seems most lenders can't be bothered with, so have just stopped offering products to people that receive foreign income, probably as the small section of the market that has this income isn't worth the effort and/or cost of fulfilling the requirements of the money laundering checks.

Nic_George

Thank you for the great link and information. I'm familiarizing myself now. Fingers crossed!

Nic_George

Is anyone aware of other lenders that will do this without the 25% salary deduction for currency fluctuations?

dgtazzman

As said, HSBC, they take full foreign income into consideration. You could also try Natwest as I couldn't find anything excluding foreign income in their criteria, though I never had to put it to the test as HSBC issued me a very sharp formal offer with minimal effort on my part. Natwest was going to be my next port of call if HSBC would have been a dead end.

EDIT: looked at Natwest/RBS lending criteria, they accept non-sterling income, though have put a very vague comment with it that this COULD be subject to LTV limitations, so you'd have to ask one of their advisers their exact policy for non-sterling income. They are also stopping lending for expats, but will lend to foreigners residing in the UK with a right to do so.

Nic_George

Thanks, will review Natwest tonight.

Thrugelmir

Nic_George wrote: »

Is anyone aware of other lenders that will do this without the 25% salary deduction for currency fluctuations?

Affordability is now a core issue for lenders. As is their responsibility. Assuming you are paid in €. There's been a 13% movement in the past year. Difficult t see the measurement being totally disregarded.