Expat mortgages

[movidensul]

Anyone recommend any banks (or other) that provide mortgages if you are paid overseas and want to buy a house in UK?

We recently looked into this as we were expats in the USA wanting to buy in the UK and HSBC would have been an option for us. We ended up moving back to Uk so didn't pursue it but they said we were eligible.

Thanks Scotmum83. I'll take a look at HSBC. Did you use a broker or find mortgage providers yourself?

I looked into doing this with Hsbc about five years ago. They told me I had to have a 25% deposit plus £60,000 in my Hsbc current account in the U.K. This was impossible. We had the deposit but couldn't put the money into the account on top of that, so didn't end up going ahead and buying.

Interesting nameisnotimportant, I wondered if having an HSBC account might be the case. Did you find any other mortgage companies that were willing to lend to you?

Skipton International are worth checking out, OP.

Snowite thanks. I looked at Skipton International but they seem to only deal in buy to let mortgages.

No, everyone else we looked at had similar criteria

Hang on, are you earning outside UK but want to buy in UK and live in it whilst your income is still generated overseas?

Snowtite yes!

From April non residents buying property in the UK will be charged an extra 2% stamp duty.

Lochmorlic thanks. We are actually UK residents so won't be affected by that but unfortunately by the time we've managed to find a mortgage we will not benefit from the stamp duty freeze.

@movidensul

Snowtite yes!

Ok...I don't think it's an expat mortgage you need. I would look for a specialist broker who can look for banks which accept foreign income to pay back a GBP mortgage which is a different thing. My knowledge is rusty but I think law changed couple of years ago so your affordability limits are amended to take a Forex fluctuation margin of an extra 15% or so into consideration. Or something along those lines.

Your other option is to look for a bank in the country you earn the income in, however because you are not resident in that country, they would likely impose standard expat mortgage conditions.

What you are looking for is called a foreign currency mortgage. There are about a handful of providers with various criteria, HSBC being the only ‘mainstream’ bank.

Snowtite "I think law changed couple of years ago so your affordability limits are amended to take a Forex fluctuation margin of an extra 15% or so into consideration" - yes this is what a broker told me today I think - mortgage would be based on approximately 75% of salary. Called a stress rating I think.

We are also going to explore a mortgage in the country we earn income in as well.

ForensicAccountant thank you. Do you know of any other providers besides HSBC?

Do you know of any other providers besides HSBC

Sent you a list by PM.

@movidensul @ForensicAccountant Sorry to jump on an old thread but is it possible I could also know some of the Foreign income lenders 🙏