Income and expenditure details

samk777

For Inc and exp details for a mortgage lender, how much detail do I need to go into for the expenditure? Is it just essential bills or do I need to go further? 

tacpot12

It's essential bills plus minimum debt repayments, plus other regular, but variable expenditures such as food and car maintenance (you need to average this out). You should probably already know what your food budget is for a month as you will have already worked out whether you can afford to pay a mortgage.

(Make sure your set your minimum debt repayments not to what the lender will accept, but what makes financial sense! Paying your credit card off at the minimum rate usually takes about 20 years, and results in you paying massive amounts of interest! So if you have any credit card debt, aim to clear it within 12 months, and record your debt repayments based on this schedule - then stick to the plan!). 

The essential bills should also include annual items such as car tax, car insurance, breakdown cover, etc. (You will need to convert these to monthly amounts if monthly figures is what the lender has asked for). 
Also include any voluntary payments to others that you don't intend to stop making, such as Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) to a pension.

The only things you can leave out are discretionary spending such as entertainment, meals out and take-aways, clothing, and savings such as for a holiday - items of spending that you can stop at a moment's notice. (There is probably an expenditure on clothing that is essential and can't be stopped, but you don't need to try to estimate what this is - the lender expects your budget to have some flexibility in it to juggle discretinary spending.)

kingstreet

It's lender dependent. If you look at each lender's affordability calculator you'll see the difference. Some want only non-standard outgoings like credit, childcare, maintenance etc while others want a full budget planner completed.

ACG

Our factfind has a breakdown of everything from council tax to food. If we are looking at high street lenders, I tell people to ignore it all bar maintenance and childcare. If we are looking at building societies or adverse lenders I want it all completing.