expat mortgage - is it the mythical unicorn ?

[ohdogoaway]

We have been living abroad for a few years now - DH is European citizen and main earner, we don't earn in sterling and salary doesn't go into UK bank, and we don't have a credit history in UK despite paying mortgage on a small flat. We are want to buy a bigger property to eventually live in when we return in a few years but NOONe wants to lend to us, despite having good salary, never missing a mortgage payment. Even the expat mortgage people who give shitty rates don't want to lend to us . Has anyone else been through this and had any success in finding a lender?

Another one with HSBC - it was a choice of them or Barclays for us. It was easy. We needed a 20% deposit because they get a bit twitchy about the LTV ratio with expat mortgages but it only took about 3 weeks to get sorted.

Santander, Natwest, RBS and HSBC do them but the deposit requirements are high. We're using a broker called Liquid Expat.