UK mortgages for Expats

[Lavenderhoney]

Not sure if this is in the right place but I'll give it a go! If anyone can help it would be great. We want to buy a house in the UK for me and the Dc to live in whilst DH continues living and and working in the Middle East.

Does anyone have any advice, who to contact, who to avoid? And if it can be done- I have read some stuff about how hard it is and wanted to check. I have been on the FSA site and looked for advisors, but there seem so many expat -mortgage sites... It just looks a minefield.

We bought a place 2 years ago (also in the ME) via a mortgage broker. You will pay more interest, but tbh I 'm pretty sure our deal was one of the last that particular' and offered, they generally are not keen.

Do you have a premier account ? We had both an English and a UAE one We got our buy to let's through that when we returned to England. You'll generally get better deals through them.

We did but binned it. I have found someone from the fsa site, but he scared me by asking if I had an email address set up in this country yet:)??!

I am overseas and have two mortagage offers. It does help that I am still a UK taxpayer working for govt overseas but still wasn't easy. What worked for me was asking banks tht I already have a relationship with. So HSBC were fine as I have banked with them for 20 years but they in any case seem more open to expat mortgages so worth a try. As I was also selling a house in UK my current mortagage provider was also open (Lloyd's).

Hi lavenderhoney we used a broker when we bought in 2009 & the same guy in 2010. Have been in touch with him recently & he said quite a few of the lenders have withdrawn from the expat market but it is still possible. PM me if you would like his details.

We got one in the Autumn at HSBC. We just walked into a branch and applied. We had to provide lots of extra information but it came through in the end.

We aren't UK residents, don't pay tax in the UK and have been away for more than 10 years. We do have a UK bank account (it isn't with HSBC - and they didn't need us to open one with them).