Can I buy a UK house whilst overseas?

ebonyslimmm

Hi all,

I have a two-year contract at a school in Doha and would like to buy a UK property.

Can this be done whilst overseas? Or do I need to wait until my contract is up, and I'm back in the UK?

Cheers

AnotherJoe

Are you a UK national?
You may need to appear here once to get ID checks done. Unless they can be notarised which i dont know.

All other documents and whatever that need signing you can give power of attorney to a UK solicitor to sign on your behalf.

Housebuy12345

If you get paid into your Doha bank, probably not.

davidmcn

You can do all the legal bits from overseas, but how are you planning to fund it? It'll be tricky getting a mortgage if you're abroad and haven't (yet) started a job in the UK.

Plus practical things - are you coming back to the UK to view properties before you buy one? Or relying on somebody else's opinion of them?

silvercar

We once bought off someone overseas who had never been to the UK. He had to prove his identity and provide countless documents, but in the end he managed to get it done without visiting the UK.

Retireby40

Not many banks get involved in what would be regarded as expat mortgages. I think HSBC are one of the ones that do but apparently your salary needs to be something like £75,000 a year.

Don't know what your salary is but if it's close to that you may be in luck. Best thing might be just to work your two years save up and come home and buy something.

Also you may find you like living in Doha, you may meet a rich partner and decide to stay.

Hillwalker11

My son bought a property whilst abroad. His situation is slightly different as he is living and working in Hong Kong long term. If you are on a 2 year contract I would wait until you are home. It is very difficult and very expensive plus lots of form filling from embassies and notaries. My son had a broker who got him a BTL mortgage with Skipton Building Society who were brilliant, they have a good reputation for mortgages for overseas buyers. However the broker and the BS charged a lot for their services as it is a niche market. HSBC laughingly wouldn't touch my son even though he fitted the criteria, he felt they only really liked lending to multi millionaires.

One thing if you do go ahead is to have somebody in the UK have Power of Attorney over your finance. Money well spent and cuts down a lot of problems and time, especially nearing completion with an 8 hour time difference. Also my son had kept his English bank account active, this was invaluable. Don't think he could have proceeded otherwise.

Also I seem to remember you can get a residential mortgage when you only have 6 months left on your contract and you will definitely be returning to the UK at the end of the 6 months. However this was a good few years ago so the criteria could have changed.