Self-employed paranoia

Spork

hello all,

My girlfriend and I have a joint mortgage for £61k on our flat (valued at £95k 18 months ago) which we started in March last year. The deal (4.59% fixed) finishes at the end of September ths year. The lender has sent me details of new mortgage deals (which I don't entirely understand, but that's another story...) which seem reasonable (lowest is 4.69% fixed, 2 years).

Now, the big problem for us is that since April last year we have both given up our jobs (we both earnt just over £20k) and become self employed. We can't prove our income and haven't filed any tax returns yet, plus my girlfriend has only earnt just over £6k in the past year, I'm doing a bit better on about £28k. I've now become paranoid that the lender will take one look at our situation and give us the boot, after I realised we'd have to go through all the 'proof of income' stuff again. We have no debts (bar the mortgage) and no defaults.

Does anyone else have any experience of this situation? I don't really want the hassle of switching lenders (mainly for the ridiculous fees).

Fairdo_2

If they are actually offering you rates such as the 4.69% Fixed for 2 years, then my suggestion would be to take it, as I reckon the only thing you would need to do is pay the relevant admin costs.

As the best 2 year Fix at the moment seems to be 4.44%, so there is not that much in it and you are likely to be paying a lot more in costs if you change lender, as you will be doing a full legal remortgage, whereas, with your existing lender it is going to be a product transfer.

As you have kept your current mortgage payments, it is unlikely that they will be too concerned about proofs of income this time. I would be suprised if they want to trawl through all of your information again if you are doing a debt for debt remortgage and you are a good existing borrower.