Mortgage declined - advice

Aaron83

Hi there all

My wife and I are seeking advice..

My wife is British but we lived in Asia for the last 6-7 years. I’m Australian and here on a spousal visa that has 2 years 3 months on it. We only arrived May last year.

We found a place we love at 500k and have a 10% deposit ready. After getting an AIP we proceeded with an application today with NatWest in a 2 year fixed rate. Unfortunately it’s been declined at underwriting.

The issue seems to be we don’t have a long enough visa length (max I can get at a time is 2 years 6 months) and we don’t have sufficient credit history having been living abroad and no history left on file for my wife.

We are applying with Halifax Tuesday. Had anyone had experience with lenders that deal in foreigners on visas? We have a combined income of over £150k so affordability isn’t an issue and really want to find someone willing to work with us

Appreciate any advice you may have

iquit

Sorry I can't comment as no direct experience or knowledge. I am assuming you and your wife applied direct for the mortgage. Your circumstances are rather unique. You'd probably be best served by a whole of market broker. All the best.

Thrugelmir

Aaron83 wrote: »

we don’t have sufficient credit history having been living abroad and no history left on file for my wife.

Therein lies your major problem. Takes time to rebuild history.

Simby

You have 2 issues the visa and lack of credit history.

Go to a whole of market broker who can work with your wife’s lack of history.

Maybe she can get a mortgage depending on affordability for just herself on her income with you as a dependent.

You could also consider a cheaper house that your wife could get , would also mean a better Ltv , and affordability do you really need to spend 500k. Can you get something for half that?

We are in a similar situation in that my husband is Australian and on a spousal visa and I have also lost my history from living in AU and I was told to wait 6 months of living here for a mortgage and the visa could be an issue if we were to buy jointly BUT rather then go down the expensive house route we (I) bought in a town 40 mins from my work ( house price difference 600k near work 230k where we now live) house is a 3 bed semi double drive garden end of cul de sac over looking a green with lovely views) , due to the lack of credit history we went for a house where we did not need a mortgage and I bought the house in my name only as I am the citizen and he is on a visa, so much simpler.

When we have the money we will extend it .

It also means we are young and mortgage free we were lucky Sydney house prices rises and selling in Sydney just before it crashed

katsu

I would cancel the Halifax appointment and find a mortgage broker.

One of the financial advisors here should be able to advise you how to find one or the main site articles should cover it

ACG

Natwest were never going to accept the application. You may have more luck with Halifax but I am not sure with such limited history and a 10% deposit you will get this over the line.

I think you may need a more specialist lender to have a chance.

brenda10

Recommended by Martin Lewis.
You can contact L&C by telephone and do your application over the telephone, they give free advice and will hopefully be able to tell you what chance you have of getting a mortgage.
Good luck.
:beer:

Aaron83

Thanks everyone for the responses! Much appreciated

We’ve actually already gone through L&C and they did the application for NatWest and are doing the Halifax one on Tuesday. They’ve been really good we just thought we would see if anyone had any thoughts on here about other lenders they have had luck with.

We’ll see how Tuesday goes now and go from there. Hopefully if this doesn’t go through we can up the LTV and see if that makes a difference. It just eats into savings we wanted to use to do things to the property on. Focus now is to get the property and worry about other investments down the line

csgohan4

brenda10 wrote: »

Recommended by Martin Lewis.
You can contact L&C by telephone and do your application over the telephone, they give free advice and will hopefully be able to tell you what chance you have of getting a mortgage.
Good luck.
:beer:

L+C you get what you pay for, their fine for straight forward applications, but when it comes to complicated or adverse credit, your in trouble


So now OP has a wasted Credit check because L+C didn't know what their doing

luiza8

We have a similar situation and used L&C and they told us straight away that only One lender would lend to us, and we worked it it was Halifax.

My boyfriend is Italian and we’ve lived in Australia for 4 years. I kept my U.K. bank accounts open and still registered on the electoral role while away. We’ve been back in the U.K. since August and working here. Put in an application with Halifax on Friday so waiting to hear back. They’ve asked for our bank statements for the last 3 months but don’t think it’s gone to an underwriter yet. Our LTV is 71%.

ACG

The last time we had a similar case to this, Natwest told us they needed 3 years UK address history for all applicants.

Assuming that is still the case, it makes me wonder why Natwest were recommended in the first place. It is funny that the OP says they are happy with L&C as I do not know many people who would be happy with an application going in to a lender they do not even fit the most basic of criteria. Things could have changed, but I have not seen any emails about it.