Mortgage in job probationary period-Advice Please

1st_time_buyer_5

My partner and I are looking to buy our first house - as quickly as possible. I am in a 3 month probationary period, having started a new job 2 weeks ago, partner has been in a 'permanant' job since Feb, but on a succession of 3 month contracts (which he has been assured will almost certainly continue to be renewed). We are looking at houses from £95-110k and have a very good deposit of £40k. I am a graduate, working part time and earning £10k p/a (I am also volunteering part time to gain experience for a future 'real career'), Partner is not a graduate, earns £12,500 p/a. My employer has so far been very happy with my performance, and I may well receive a payrise at the end of the probationary period. Both sets of parents are comfortably off, and would probably help us out if problems did arise.

We have had conflicting mortgage advice:

-That the probabtinary/temp contracts are not a problem due to our deposit (effectively there is low risk for mortgage company, as they can easily recover their money should they have to repossess due to the level of our equity). We were given an agreement in principle by Chelsea for £67,500.

- That the above is not true, and that only 2 companies will offer mortgages on probatinary contracts (Intelligent Finance and Kensington Mortgage Company) - These companies apparently don't ASK about probationary periods, whereas apparently we would have to lie about my probationary period on the actual mortgage application to get the Chelsea mortgage.

- A third advisor has said that this second statement is not true, and that in light of our large deposit, we may be able to disclose my probationary period and still get a mortgage - he recommends one of the 'first tier' mortgage providers (Halifax/HSBC etc...), rather than Chelsea/ intelligent Finance.

Further points re our requirements:
-We have so far looked at fixed rates - we would like to ensure our repayments don't suddenly become unafordable, however flexible rates are not written off completely

- We will possibly be renting the house for a year or so in 2006/2007 whilst we travel. Rent should pay mortgage. Second financial advisor told us we should not mention this to mortgage company until tenants are in - as there is some loophole which prevents them suddenly raising our rates to those of 'buy to let' if tenants are already in. True?

- We want some payment protection insurance for this year incase of problems with tenants (and possibly should we have this now too? Incase of redundancy etc?)

-We think we want 3yr tie in if fixed rate - we cant rearrange mortgage in 2 years if out of country.

- there is a possibility we will be able to repay our mortgage in full in a few years (Partner's parents may pay it off when they sell 2nd home, our debt will then be with them - at cheap/ interest free rate). We therefore want to avoid hefty repayment charges even though we will initially go for a 25 yr term (to keep monthly payments down). Similarly, it would be nice (perhaps not essential) to have over/under/payment holiday options - to pay more if we were to inherit more money, and less if we were to have employment problems.

So, Which advice makes sense? Who do we go to? What do we tell them?