Help with first time mortgage

potentialhousebuyer

Hey everyone, 

I’m looking for some advice and wondered if anyone could give me some guidance with this. 

I’m in my mid 30’s and looking to purchase my first home, I am looking for a 1 bedroom flat/house. 

I will have about £10, 000 saved for the deposit. 

I work and I also receive disability benefit due to my visual impairment. 

The one major thing that worries me is I have a spent conviction and understand mortgages will stipulate you need certain insurance in place and I’m worried this will be difficult to obtain. 

The reason I say this is because I had contents insurance before I received a conviction and at the time because it was unspent I had to inform my insurance provider and they terminated my insurance. 

Since then I have never had contents insurance in place as I was always worried about declaring the conviction. 

However, although it is spent now, insurance companies often ask questions about previous insurance and wouldn’t I be obliged to tell them I have had insurance terminated before and then even though my conviction is spent they will still find out why it was terminated anyway? 

The other issue is, do mortgage providers insist on life insurance? Just because of my medical history and disability I have always been declined for traditional insurance. I do have a plan in place but it covers more funeral costs and accidents, etc. 

So all of this together is worrying me on how it will work and whether getting a mortgage is going to be easy? 

I’ve heard about brokers and specialist advisors, is this the best option? 

Thanks. 

ACG

The only insurance you are required to have is buildings insurance. The only time I have ever had a problem with this is when a customer was done for insurance fraud - I have come across various people with criminal pasts (my favourite was the man who stole a lorry full of spam in the 1950s). Generally speaking a criminal past does not prevent you from getting insurance, but it might be worth speaking to an insurance broker (probably not swinton though). 

Life insurance, I am guessing it is unlikely you will die from your condition so in theory it should be possible to get life insurance. But it is not a requirement in any event. 

In terms of your income, if you need to use the benefit income the way lenders use it can vary massively. It will also depend on whether you will receive it for life (guaranteed) or it is reviewed x number of years. Worst case scenario some lenders may not use it, some will use 50%, some may go higher. 

El_Torro

Regarding buldings / content insurance: If you buy a leasehold property then the buildings insurance should be covered in the service charge. The management company will arrange it and you just pay your share as part of the service charge. If your property is freehold then you need to arrange this yourself. 

Contents insurance is not mandatory but it is recommended. I wouldn't worry too much about having had insurance cancelled before, this shouldn't stop you from getting insurance in future. Due to your history you may end up paying more for the insurance though.

potentialhousebuyer

Thanks for the replies. I think it’s definitely the insurance aspect I was over thinking. 

potentialhousebuyer

I wanted to come back as I had been doing research and I eventually spoke with a mortgage broker yesterday, so I’ll add a few points I hope someone can comment on or clarify. 

1. It was mentioned some actual mortgage lenders might ask about convictions, again though, I’m assuming this would be unspent only? Mine is spent. I was reading this link that said I shouldn’t have to declare spent convictions - https://unlock.org.uk/advice/owning-home/

2. Same with insurance, it was mentioned, as well as what people said above that buildings insurance would be all I would be required to have. However the situation I mentioned above that if I am asked about policies terminated I would have to declare this and may get asked why. However this defeats the fact that because my conviction is spent I don’t need to declare it no more, but in this situation, I’d be forced to explain why my policy was previously terminated so they would then find out about my conviction anyway even if it was spent. 

So is organising (point 2) this possibly with a specialist insurance broker the best way forward when I get that far? 

Could any of you comment or clarify further please?

Thanks.