Paid in dollars. Who will accept for mortgage?

AdmanPea

Hi
If you work on a cruise ship (paid in dollars into a regular Barclays account) is there a lender that will accept this to grant lending for a mortgage? It appears that many banks take issue with the pay being in dollars and won't lend on this basis....

ACG

I only know of 2-3 and at least 2 of those are little building societies in the sticks. 
I think there is one high street lender, but I could be wrong. 

I do not think we (brokers) are allowed to name lenders specifically on the forum. But have you thought about speaking to a broker? Options are thin on the ground and there will be a few quirks for this kind of thing I imagine (I have never done a foreign income mortgage personally). 

AdmanPea

Perhaps speaking to a broker is the best route? A quick Google gave nothing away. It would seem odd that nobody would do it. How can anybody, paid in dollars, ever hope to buy a house if not outright? 

[Deleted User]

I work near a US air base so do quite a few of these. 
A couple of high street lenders, a few regional building socities as ACG says.  Id probably say 7 or 8 lenders at a push lend to $ income.    
1 high street lender will even do a straight currency exchange with a 5% deposit if married to a British person.  Treats you both as British which is quite useful.  

Generally you will need a 25% deposit, some lenders take 25% off your income to account for fluctuations.  

SouthLondonUser

Speak to Trinity Financial (they're a broker, not a lender). I used them twice and they were very good. At least 6 between friends and colleagues have used them multiple times. None of us were paid in another currency but I know they do lots of unusual and more bespoke deals.

ACG

SouthLondonUser said:

Speak to Trinity Financial (they're a broker, not a lender). I used them twice and they were very good. At least 6 between friends and colleagues have used them multiple times. None of us were paid in another currency but I know they do lots of unusual and more bespoke deals.

We do lots of unusual cases, usually bad credit cases but also quirky incomes (albeit in sterling). I am not saying those brokers cant help, but I would find a broker such as JMA who is used to doing this type of thing.

I know of 2-3 lenders, so I could place this case probably, but it does not mean I would find the best lender. 

bpj

I'm paid in USD and have a standard mortgage obtained direct with HSBC at the best interest rate I could find among all lenders at the time. I did carefully read their lending criteria before applying (http://www.intermediaries.hsbc.co.uk/criteria/residential-lending-criteria.html), where they explicitly cover this.

My income was reduced by 20% to account for currency exchange rate fluctuations (to my best recollection, it may have been 10%). I don't think this is mentioned in the lending criteria. FYI my LTV is 60% but they also seemed happy with 70% (and perhaps higher though we didn't discuss this).

Despite being confident I fulfilled their criteria, the time between application and approval was quite stressful, and in hindsight I think using a broker would have been a good idea. But I think it would be sensible to use one that works with HSBC - I don't imagine a specialist lender could come close to matching their rates.

Good luck!