Advice for a dentist (who has moved around a lot)

imgiseverything

My partner and I are looking to buy a property together in London. I am self employed web developer (8 years self-employed) and she is a Dentist. Like most Dentists she is (technically) self-employed - but unlike most self-employed people; she has only one employer, a guaranteed income and a permanent contract. After many years following 6-12 month long training programmes in NHS hospitals she has moved addresses (and cities) every year - sometimes multiple times per year, but as of last summer (after being disillusioned with hospital system) she has gone into practice (doing a mixture of NHS and some private work).

We have been in our current home in London (rented, furnished) for 9months. The year before, we lived in another city but moved twice in the space of a year after our first flat flooded. The year before that I lived in my own home (owner, for 8 years) whereas she lived in another 2 cities over the course of 3 years (always rented). Such is the life of a junior doctor/dentist in the NHS.

We are finding that either high street banks won't touch our mortgage application because as a self employed person without her having 2-3 years of financial records they say her income can't be proved and if they do see past that (e.g. they understand the dentistry employment model) then they can't see past all the address changes.

Our bank, First Direct, have said they would waive the 2-3 years worth of records and accept 1 year of accounts from her (because we are loyal customers) but she only has 9 months worth.

First Direct have also said they could give us a mortgage in my name for 4.5 times my earnings but that would leave us £100k short of a property in our area.

Our financial history is good otherwise, no large debts (except her student loans), a sizeable deposit (giving us nearly 80% LTV) and my partner's salary, as a dentist, is pretty good - certainly larger than mine.

Recently we enlisted the help of a mortgage broker, recommended by some Dentist friends, and he did some investigations for mortgage agreements in principle and was told by banks that without having a 35% deposit they would not consider our application. We can find a max of 20-25% deposit but no more than that.

Another thing is that my partner's parents have acted as guarantors on family member mortgages in the past and have offered to do so for us but getting past the address/self employed thing with banks it seems is still a stumbling block.

Purchasing a property would save us significantly on rent payments and is a good decision if only we could get the mortgage!

Hopefully someone out there has some experience getting a professional mortgage and can offer advice?

Senior_Paper_Monitor

Is she in practice alone or as partnership ?

Probably do-able either way, but easier if the latter.

Newbiebuyer2016

Believe it or not but lots of self employed people are actually 'employed' by one person. My partner is in the construction industry and gets paid weekly by one company on a permanent contract.

I think they could have put it under a contractor with his wage slips, but he has his accounts down every year so we could use that. I understand your pain as we had to have 3 years accounts PLUS they had to increase year on year PLUS a letter from the accountant to predict this years takings.

Was she paid into her bank account, did she not have invoices/ wage slips or tax returns? She must have some sort of financial evidence from her earnings?

Newbiebuyer2016

Might have missed that bit, has she actually only been earning for 9 months?

imgiseverything

Senior_Paper_Monitor wrote: »

Is she in practice alone or as partnership ?.

She is an Associate. Which means someone else runs/owns the practice and she is an 'employee'

imgiseverything

Newbiebuyer2016 wrote: »

Might have missed that bit, has she actually only been earning for 9 months?

She has only been earning as a self-employed person for 9 months.

She has pay slips from previous jobs (that were PAYE) but my experience of speaking to banks is that if you're self-employed now then pay slips of previous jobs don't count for much.

imgiseverything

To kind of finish this thread off, it seems the trick is to:
A: go with your current bank as they don't flag up issues with addresses as much whereas going to a new bank means they want your last 3 years of addresses and get put off if there's lots.
B: try to find a bank that understands how dentistry employment works. It is self employment but you do get monthly payslips (keep explaining it to them, make sure they 'get' it and some of the banks will understand)

In the end we got a mortgage in principle from Natwest (who we both bank with separately), our other bank First Direct couldn't understand the dentistry thing and so said no.

missbiggles1

imgiseverything wrote: »

My partner and I are looking to buy a property together in London. I am self employed web developer (8 years self-employed) and she is a Dentist. Like most Dentists she is (technically) self-employed - but unlike most self-employed people; she has only one employer, a guaranteed income and a permanent contract. After many years following 6-12 month long training programmes in NHS hospitals she has moved addresses (and cities) every year - sometimes multiple times per year, but as of last summer (after being disillusioned with hospital system) she has gone into practice (doing a mixture of NHS and some private work).

We have been in our current home in London (rented, furnished) for 9months. The year before, we lived in another city but moved twice in the space of a year after our first flat flooded. The year before that I lived in my own home (owner, for 8 years) whereas she lived in another 2 cities over the course of 3 years (always rented). Such is the life of a junior doctor/dentist in the NHS.

We are finding that either high street banks won't touch our mortgage application because as a self employed person without her having 2-3 years of financial records they say her income can't be proved and if they do see past that (e.g. they understand the dentistry employment model) then they can't see past all the address changes.

Our bank, First Direct, have said they would waive the 2-3 years worth of records and accept 1 year of accounts from her (because we are loyal customers) but she only has 9 months worth.

First Direct have also said they could give us a mortgage in my name for 4.5 times my earnings but that would leave us £100k short of a property in our area.

Our financial history is good otherwise, no large debts (except her student loans), a sizeable deposit (giving us nearly 80% LTV) and my partner's salary, as a dentist, is pretty good - certainly larger than mine.

Recently we enlisted the help of a mortgage broker, recommended by some Dentist friends, and he did some investigations for mortgage agreements in principle and was told by banks that without having a 35% deposit they would not consider our application. We can find a max of 20-25% deposit but no more than that.

Another thing is that my partner's parents have acted as guarantors on family member mortgages in the past and have offered to do so for us but getting past the address/self employed thing with banks it seems is still a stumbling block.

Purchasing a property would save us significantly on rent payments and is a good decision if only we could get the mortgage!

Hopefully someone out there has some experience getting a professional mortgage and can offer advice?

Surely that just means waiting for 3 months?

amnblog

Speak to a mortgage broker that specialises in Professionals as we do.

We handle similar cases for Dentists every week and there are options available.