Mortgage and maternity pay?

[Emslifechoices]

If we're trying for a baby (and therefore I will (hopefully) be on maternity leave soon) should we calculate our mortgage on just my husband's salary? We were planning on calculating amount we could borrow on joint incomes but I don't get very good maternity pay with my job so would be on statutory for most of the time off. Thoughts please!

My advice, from bitter experience, is to get your mortgage offer very firmly in place before having a baby. When you have a baby, the mortgage company may want you to have a whole load more disposable income to cover childcare, and may amend you offer accordingly on affordability grounds.

It probably would be the sensible thing to do if TTC in the near future, yes.

Or at least be sure that your new mortgage repayment will still be affordable when you are on maternity leave, even if your current income is used in the calculations.

Good luck with both the house purchase & TTC .

Are you talking sensible budgeting, or what to tell the mortgage provider to get a mortgage?

What you can borrow and what is affordable to you may be very different.

I would see a broker to find out how much providers will lend you based on your current salaries (it could take years to get prenant) and then decide if you are comfortable with the monthly repayments both whilst you are still working and when you're on maternity leave.

Im a sahm now. I was pregnant (but didnt mention it) when we got the mortgage. We used both of our incomes to get a mortgage but made sure we could afford the repayments on just dh's job.

Do it on your current jobs ( you don't know how easy/hard it will be to get pregnant). When pregnant save up money to make sure your mortgage is covered until you go back to work