Can’t get a mortgage because I work in Libya. There must be a way?

Attonine

An unusual problem for this forum I think.

I am a British citizen, born and bred. U.K. residence, I pass all the tests. I work on a rotation basis in Libya, 42 days on, 37 days off. I work for a Libyan National company, and Oil and Gas company. I receive a salary in Stirling into my U.K. bank account regularly, have proper pay slips etc. In my off days I return to the U.K.

I own a property in the U.K., buy to let. It has about £50k left on the mortgage. I’ve had full occupancy since I purchased the property around 10 yrs ago.

I am now looking to remortgage, release some equity, add this to my savings, and buy 2-3 more buy to let’s.

The issue is Libya. Libya is on the sanctions list. In practice this means so far no one has wanted to come anywhere near me. 2 lenders have gone so far as to suggest they can deal with this, taken the money and then come back with a No! In One case a change of goal posts to such an extreme that the requirements were simply impossible to meet (Utility bill with address, etc. I work in an oil field, we are the Utility, and Libya does not have private addresses, only PO Box of my company, all stated before an agreement was entered into).

So my question is this. Am I really out of luck or is there some way I can deal with this?

ACG

Which lenders said yes then no?
There are a couple of potential lenders but as you say, Libya is probably the deal breaker here. It is not really my strong point so just take what I say with a pinch of salt.

I would be looking at one or 2 medium sized building societies who push ex pat mortgages, but I suspect when it comes to it, Libya will be the issue.

Brock_and_Roll

Libya is alas a nightmare for bankers at the moment and as the op works (I presume) for the national oil company I can see why he has ended up in this unfortunate situation.

In a nutshell, every tom, richard and harry country/organisation is meddling in Libya at the moment with the EU, UN, US, Russia etc all having different positions and sanction levels.

To add to this there is a full blown civil war going on with the UN providing lukewarm support to the government in Tripoli and the US appearing to back the rebel leader (who is a US citizen that used to live in Langley Virginia....!) who has already captured a lot of the country.

So given all this, bankers are giving it a wide berth as they don't want to get caught on the wrong side of the law depending on what happens on the ground.

foxy-stoat

Maybe you should re-think your plans on building your BTL empire for a while.

Attonine

One company is called Vida. This is a small, new company I think. They were actually pretty good to deal with. Didn’t come up with any stupid questions and weren’t phased by the situation. Ultimately it came down to “compliance”. This is when the goalposts started to change. Irritating because I had been very clear from first contact that Libya was in play.

The second company, I’m sorry, I’ve checked my emails and the best I can do is the initials BM. I can remember that the name is a northern town, like Barnsley Mutual, something like this, but I just can’t remember exactly what it is. These came back with really dumb questions things were rejected quite quickly. Quite expensive if I remember correctly. Again, crystal clear about Libya from first contact and to be honest this company should never have agreed to enter into a contract.

By broker has gone through lots and lots of mortgage lenders. I’m sure like everyone here, he has the same software and everyone and we went through a selection process and contacted those that fit the criteria. He has also made contacts in various business groups etc. I don’t have a definitive list.

I work for a subsidiary of National Oil Company. My plan had always been to get a few BTL for a passive income. I had never planned on ending up on the U.K., but dare I mention it, with things like Brexit, my post employment plans have had to be re-evaluated drastically, and the potential of having to find an extra £250k for a house to live in in The U.K. is not something that’s making me dance around with joy!

Thanks for everyone who has responded so far.