questions about mortgage

[DinksMum]

Hello,
We're currently living abroad but moving back to the UK very soon, we've saved a bit of a deposit and are hoping to only be renting for 6/8 months before we buy. I have a couple of questions which Im sure you lovely lot could have a go at answering for me!

Together we bring home £2800, everything but rent costs £750, we would love to overpay our mortgage (when we get one) by as much as possible. However, I can only find fixed rate with no overpaying or trackers which frighten me a bit as I'm worried the interest will be too much/undo the overpaying..... So my question is...How do you pick or start to investigate these things?

Second question is that my friend said that banks wouldn't belive/trust(?) that we don't have sky/don't eat out much/go clothes shopping every weekend. This surely can't be true can it? I thought they'd want to see a budget you're already sticking to and by talking to you they'd see you weren't big shoppers/party goers etc...

Thank you!

Oops...I meant to say we bring home £2800 a month after pension etc!

Banks use a credit checker such as Experian to check the affordability of the mortgage (or credit card or loan) you are requesting. The rules are fairly strict these days about not allowing customers to take on more debt than they can afford to pay back. Experian etc can check your outgoings against your incomings, and lenders will look at things like number of dependants, your age etc etc to assess whether they should lend to you.

My advice would be to book some interviews with different mortgage providers to discuss face to face what your preferred mortgage type is, and to take advice from them as to what would be best for you. The days of selling unsuitable financial products are over.

Most fixed rate mortgages allow you to overpay up to 10% of the amount of the mortgage each year. You can do this either by overpaying by a fixed amount each month or in a lump sum (or series of lump sums). We do a mixture. Regular monthly overpayments & then consider our position every year & whether we can do a lump sum overpayment or need the money for some other reason like building work or a holiday of a lifetime. Some mortgage providers do daily calculations but others just do annual calculations. If you intend to overpay, go for a provider which offers daily calculations as then you get the immediate benefit of your overpayment.
Mortgage providers don't just do credit checks these days but most also want to see 3 months of bank statements as that gives them a better insight into spending habits & affordability.

We moved back to the uk last year after being abroad for three years and had quite a problem getting a mortgage. A lot of providers would not consider lending to us until we'd been back in the uk for at least one or two years ( I now can't remember which!). This is mostly because they want to drill down into affordability and they said they couldn't do that if we hadn't been in the uk. We did eventually get a mortgage but you might find that your choices are restricted.