FTB worries... pension?

Aperture14

Hi all,

I’ve been trawling through the forums for a while, trying to stop my uncontrollable worrying! I’m new to this, so please be kind in the comments!

Mortgage so far...
19/3: Found a house, broker did a DIP with a hard search and was told we could go ahead. Put £500 reservation fee down.
11/4: Full mortgage app put in, fiance is self employed so had to put SA302 in after new tax year.
12/4: Credit search undertaken.
19/4: Survey carried out

Today we received an email off the broker asking about a payment on my payslip. It’s £150 for my pension which I pay into. My question is... will a pension affect my ability to take the full amount of mortgage offered in the DIP? Is a pension payment frowned upon in terms of affordability and debt to income ratio?

As I said... newbie to mortgage talk and I’m a massive worrier, so any insight would be appreciated!

amnblog

Depends on the Lender.

This question should be addressed to your Broker.

TheBanker

I had a similar query, because instead of writing "Pension" on my payslip, my employer writes XRP (where X is the first letter of the company name and RP stands for Retirement Plan). So in my case the question was just "what is this?" - once they knew it didn't cause a problem.

Aperture14

The lender is Natwest.

I would, but he has gone away for the weekend and the receptionist doesn’t know.

Aperture14

Thanks! Mine is similar in that it has the initials of my company and ‘2015’ as the new pension scheme began then.

Rich2808

I believe it varies by lender and also whether its deducted direct from salary or paid from your current account - the attached article illustrates the different approaches for the major lenders back in 2015.

Crazy in my view - are people seriously going to carry on paying pension contributions and risk losing their home instead?

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/may/07/i-failed-to-get-a-mortgage-because-of-my-pension-contributions

kingstreet

It's not an issue.

Relax.

SG27

Im moving house soon (hopefully) so will need to apply for a new mortgage. I have cancelled my pension payments for a few months just to be safe!

Aperture14

Thanks for your replies everyone. I did some more in-depth research on the Natwest Intermediary website and they don!!!8217;t take pension contributions into account, but after speaking to a friend HSBC did with her application which in the end, knocked her affordability. Guess it depends on the lender! Now... just to wait for the mortgage offer *fingers crossed*