Mortgage application - how to determine "outgoings" for sole application

Tirian

We have two mortgages, one joint residential and one buy to let solely in my wife's name for a property that is solely owned by her.

My salary covers all of our costs including the residential mortgage payments, bills, childcare, travel etc.

When she is applying to remortgage the btl property, they want to know her outgoings. What do we put?

Our joint outgoings are based on both our salaries, and travel requirements - half of those outgoings will not be an accurate reflection of the impact of the outgoings on her salary/disposable income and could well make it look like she is spending more than she can afford when that is not the case. However the mortgage application will presumably only factor in her income and not mine.

But equally, it seems unlikely that saying her outgoings are zero is going to be giving the information that they want either? There's no guidance on this on the AIP online form and they haven't replied to my query about it, so ... any suggestions?

amnblog

Some BTL lenders will concern themselves with your wife's outgoings, some will not.

Not a helpful answer, but there we are.

It depends on the Lender.

Specialist buy to let only lenders will most likely not be interested.

Tirian

Further to previous, finally found some info from the lender buried in some rather hard to find FAQs.

The guidance for outgoings is given as below. Which is sort of helpful, given that I wouldn't have anticipated that they would exclude living expenses from "outgoings"(!). Fortunately the answer is "zero" for most of the items to include, but again the childcare costs part is unclear how to approach.

I can give the full childcare costs of course, including the childcare vouchers that my wife purchases .. but that won't be reflective of her actual "outgoing" given that, at a minimum, half of those costs fall to me ...

I think I'm going to go with the full childcare cost including the cost of my wife's voucher purchases, but minus the cost of my voucher purchases since it really doesn't seem relevant to count as an "outgoing" from her something that is incontrovertibly covered by me..

Although this still feels a bit daft, since as long as I am in work her "childcare outgoings" can be completely covered by me - and if I lose my job then she won't have any because I would look after the children!

FAQ Guidance -

Include:

personal loans (excluding season ticket loans)
student loans
any loans or credit where acting as a guarantor second or subsequent charges secured on the property being mortgaged to us
car and hire purchase finance
overdraft interest (calculated at 2% of the current overdraft balance)
credit card, store card and catalogue debt (calculated at 3% of the current outstanding balance)
childcare costs (including childcare vouchers)
maintenance and alimony
school fees.

Exclude:
living expenses (e.g. food, utility bills, clothes, petrol)
subscriptions to leisure activities (e.g. gym or golf club membership)
commitments, payments or rent that will no longer continue if this mortgage completes
payments made for mortgages on other properties, including Buy to Let (even if they’ll continue after completion of this mortgage)
payments made for a sponsor’s mortgage if this is a First Start application
payments made into any assets/policies/plans to repay a sponsor’s interest only mortgage if this is a First Start application.