Mortgage advice

sframpton

Hello,

We have reserved a new build house and will be putting in a full mortgage application this week. We are using the Help To Buy Scheme (it's the only way we can afford to buy our first house) but I just have some concerns about our chances of getting a mortgage and was after some advice please...

Our joint income is just shy of £40k. We have a £30k deposit to put down (part inheritance/part gifted). The property we want to buy is £210k. With the Help to Buy loan being 20% (£42k) we would need a mortgage of £138k. We both have cars on finance which cost a total of £300pm. I have credit cards with no balance on, adding up to £6k available credit. We have an AIP from Halifax (using a soft credit search) which intumates we could borrow up to £158k.

I have a few concerns about us being able to get a mortgage for this amount though:

1.) I am currently on maternity leave and only getting SMP. My current RTW date is July but I plan to return at the beginning of June. We would be looking to complete on the house in mid-April.
2.) Before I went on maternity leave I had some periods of sickness, meaning that my payslips for the 3 months prior to me going on maternity aren't a true reflection of my overall earnings. I have my contract though which outlines my working hours and rate of pay.
3.) We recently got married and my name on my passport is still my maiden name. I have sent my driving license off to be updated but I am unsure about when this will be sent back. Obviously we have our marriage certificate which proves my name change though.
4.) Due to our marriage/name change I am shown as not being on the electoral roll. I have registered under my married name and I have a letter from the council proving that I am now on the electoral roll, but this still shows as a red marker on my Equifax report.
5.) My payslips are still being sent in my maiden name.

Is all this likely to add up to a decline? Would we have any more joy going with a sub prime lender?

Just to add, we will have no childcare costs to consider as we work alternating shifts.

Grateful for any advice that you can give. Currently feeling very overwhelmed and anxious.

Thanks in advance.

haras_nosirrah

Nothing you have said sounds overly problematic.

With lenders they usually look for reasons to lend as long as the case fits credit score and affordability.

The points you have brought up are easily explained and a good broker shouldn't have too many issues here.

As long as credit score and affordability stack up we could place this on the high Street

sframpton

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

Nothing you have said sounds overly problematic.

With lenders they usually look for reasons to lend as long as the case fits credit score and affordability.

The points you have brought up are easily explained and a good broker shouldn't have too many issues here.

As long as credit score and affordability stack up we could place this on the high Street

Thank you - that is reassuring.

I suppose one other thing to note is that thanks to my SMP and eye-watering rent (approx. £300 a month more than we would be paying for this mortgage...!) our bank balances for the past few months haven't exactly been healthy and we have had to use some of our savings to tide us over. I guess this won't be looked on favourably either? After the house purchase, fees etc. we would have around £7k left in savings though, which would more than get us by until I return to work full time.

At the moment we are going with a fee-free broker recommended by the developer - would we be better off paying for a broker to get us through this?

Thanks again.

haras_nosirrah

I have a case where the lender came back querying why the client had gone over her overdraft limit.

Due to a new job they asked for bank statements after submitting the application.

Client had gone £400 over her overdraft limit and on her bank statement was a transaction for £499 to Louis vuitton.

Had a bit of work to justify it but the case offered on Friday

This was a high Street lender, 3 missed payments 2 yrs ago, brand new job and 10% deposit.

Yours sounds quite easy in comparison

haras_nosirrah

In terms of whether fee or fee free brokers are better I would say it depends on the broker.

The brokers you should be looking for are whole of market (which we are) there are some fee charging brokers who charge more than we do and only have a handful of lenders (typically sitting in estate agents) - these seem to be the worse deal.

As a broker I charge £399 but only on receipt of a mortgage offer. If a client doesn't get an offer I don't get anything at all. I have not had a client not get a mortgage offer in nearly two and a half years as I spend time making sure the case will go through before submitting it.

A lot of my business comes from shared ownership referrals by two housing associations which mean smaller mortgages and therefore smaller commission. I am considered a specialist in affordable housing schemes (shared ownership and help to buy)

By charging a fee I can take on less clients and really fight for clients. I believe some non charging brokers only want easy cases but as I say you can have really good brokers who don't charge - it comes down to the individual broker.

I had a client come to see me recently who had already obtained an offer via another broker and I managed to save them 6.5k over 5 yrs. They found a lazy broker who was based in an estate agent.

sframpton

haras_nosirrah wrote: »

In terms of whether fee or fee free brokers are better I would say it depends on the broker.

The brokers you should be looking for are whole of market (which we are) there are some fee charging brokers who charge more than we do and only have a handful of lenders (typically sitting in estate agents) - these seem to be the worse deal.

As a broker I charge £399 but only on receipt of a mortgage offer. If a client doesn't get an offer I don't get anything at all. I have not had a client not get a mortgage offer in nearly two and a half years as I spend time making sure the case will go through before submitting it.

A lot of my business comes from shared ownership referrals by two housing associations which mean smaller mortgages and therefore smaller commission. I am considered a specialist in affordable housing schemes (shared ownership and help to buy)

By charging a fee I can take on less clients and really fight for clients. I believe some non charging brokers only want easy cases but as I say you can have really good brokers who don't charge - it comes down to the individual broker.

I had a client come to see me recently who had already obtained an offer via another broker and I managed to save them 6.5k over 5 yrs. They found a lazy broker who was based in an estate agent.

Thank you!

Suppose we are not allowed to contact you directly re: our mortgage are we?