Employed/Self-Employed Mortgage Troubles

rockhardplace1

The situation
I and my partner had an offer accepted on a house. We both earn about the same amount and work in the same profession, for different employers. While she is on PAYE I have been contracted full-time by a foreign employer that does not have a base in the UK since May 2019. I had to register as self-employed for tax purposes. We have a decent deposit (at least 15% of the highest-priced property we could afford all things being equal).

Initially, we ran into a brick wall with brokers not finding us anything that met our lending needs due to 'hair cut' deductions because of the risk calculation in the conversion of my earnings from USD. After doing a bit more research I found posts about Santander and HSBC, so I spoke with HSBC and the adviser spoke with the underwriters and explained the situation.

I provided all the supporting documentation as requested, and we arranged a 2-hour meeting today to go over everything. The conclusion of this meeting was that they would not be able to consider my salary in their calculations at all as I do not have two years' worth of tax returns yet — I have filed for 2019/2020 and paid HMRC, but have only been in the job for 1.5 years. Originally, I was told this would not be an issue and although it was an unusual case and would require complex assessment, the fact I was on a permanent contract with a single employer meant they should be able to consider me as employed for the sake of the application, rather than self-employed.

My questions
Am I basically stuck waiting a year now for my second tax return to be paid up? The only other option as far as I can tell is only getting a mortgage on my partner's salary, which in London where we are would buy a less desirable parking spot. Does anyone know of any lenders/brokers who would understand my situation, or am I just flat out considered self-employed?

flashg67

Have you tried a broker - we had similar issues (Lloyds) due to USD self employed earnings and lack of self employed income history. I then contacted a broker who was able to recommend which lenders would look at this more favourably - any broker worth his/her salt should be able to look at this for you I'd have thought. Worth paying a broker rather than wasting time contacting lenders yourself I'd have thought. 

Yahoo_Mail

With only one years worth of SE tax returns your options will be very limited.

Speak to a broker but when I tried it was basically Halifax or bust, and that was 3 years ago, I doubt it'll be any easier now.

rockhardplace1

Thanks for the insight.

Yes we did originally go through a broker, but they did not find anything. Closest was NatWest but they place a high penalty on USD earnings so the property we had the offer on would not work.

They did not do a full market search though, so we're going to try again with a broker who will do a full search, but it's too late for that property, unfortunately.

haras_n0sirrah

There are lenders who I think would fit this from what you have said.