Can't get any offers with soft checks

HillStreetBlues

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82153888#Comment_82153888

It seems like you have withdrawn from the labour market and now live money from other means, that sounds like retirement as there is no legal requirement to reach a certain age.

Tim_L

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82153883#Comment_82153883

"Retirement" doesn't require a formal pension, it really means that you have decided not to work any more and your income is coming from savings and investments (which may or may not be pensions or in a pension tax wrapper, that's not really relevant).

So you can honestly declare yourself retired from the point of view of your de facto situation. I honestly don't know whether you can declare 0 income and an average rate of accessing savings and still get offers, but it's easy enough to try on a pre-approval form.

This is probably a good question for the FIRE people, maybe on Reddit, I know there are people there who are in their 40s, can't access their pension yet, but are de facto retired.

MEM62

īIs this an absolute rule?

Pretty much. And you own research backs it up.

what would someone who is FIRE do?

Someone who is FIRE would be able to show an income from their investments.

Nebulous2

One alarm bell for me is that you seem to be entering different amounts in checkers to see if the result changes.

Lenders pool information and look for consistency across applications to ensure that people aren't gaming the system to improve their chances.

Look up "National Hunter" as an example of an organisation that checks for consistency.

If you put different information in applications I'd expect that you would at least be asked for documentary proof of anything you have declared.