First time buyer: mortgage after SEISS grant

Bluellama

If you're able to find a bank that will give you a loan after taking the SEISS grant, does anyone know how they decide what your income is? I've seen in one place that it was either the average of your last two years' income or your last year's, whichever is lowest. Is this a common way to calculate it? And crucially, do they base it on your income *including* the SEISS grants, or do they subtract the grant amount when they calculate your income?

Some background: I'm hoping to be able to buy my first home in the next 18 months or so because our landlord wants to move into the property around then, and I live in a remote but touristy area where finding a long-term rental is very rare. Before the pandemic my self-employed income was averaging around £40,000, in 20-21 it was around £34,000, but only around £20,000 if you took away the SEISS grants. The last tax year has been even worse (long-term Covid effects on my industry); I'd estimate that by the end of this tax year my income including SEISS grants will be around £25,000, but only around £13,000 not counting the grants. If 13,000 is the amount they take as my income, I'm stuffed! The price range for houses I'd be looking at is around £150-180K - there's very little available here for less than that. After saving hard for years, I do have around £50,000 deposit, which would work out at more than 25%. Have I got any chance at all of getting a mortgage for that amount in the next few years? I'm 42 in case that's relevant. (NB I do live with my partner (no kids) but would most likely be buying by myself. He has his own business and has been even more badly affected by Covid financially than I have, and he has no savings for a deposit. So me buying in my name only seems the best option at this point.)

MWT

Have a look at the last 2 or 3 posts on this thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6195884/seiss-grants-and-mortgage-application#latest

Bluellama

Thanks very much MWT - that's really helpful. I'd searched the forum but hadn't been able to find anything from the last few months - didn't see that those last comments were from this month!