Mortgage question re: childless couples

[moutonfou]

I'm hoping the answer to this is 'of course not, that would be completely illegal' but you never know in this society...

We don't yet have children.

If a childless couple of childbearing age applies for a mortgage, will the mortgage company secretly assume that they might have children down the line and assess their finances with that in mind, or will they literally just assess their finances as they are at the time of application?

They do it as they are at the time of application.

We remortgaged while I was pregnant, they didn't say anything even then.

They just ask about and look at your current outgoings (car finance, store cards, etc) when looking at affordability.

They assess you at that moment in time.

It's not possible to predict redundancies, children, critical illness etc so a mortgage company wouldn't do that. Similarly people usually have promotions, pay rises and job changes which will increase their money over the term of the mortgage so it works both ways.

They don't "secretly assume" anything.

Sorry, pressed post too soon. It's all done on algorithms and figures not what might happen in the future.

Thanks all.

What impact would, say, a £200/month car finance payment have? We are considering getting a new car but also want to get a mortgage in 18 months.

The max mortgage we can get on our salaries is £250,000 but the repayments on that are crazy. We'd probably be looking more at £180,000. Would a car finance payment just reduce the max amount they would give you?

Just run an old banger at the time of the application then do car finance after the deal is signed.