Maternity leave and applying for a mortgage

[Crafty97]

No idea if this is in the right place but it’s worth a go.

Me and partner are currently in the process of applying for a mortgage with NatWest- via a broker, in fact it’s just been sent for the underwriter to deal with it now. The agreement for the mortgage was accepted in principle following the soft credit and affordability checks - the broker also seemed pretty confident. I am currently full time employee and so is partner- he is nearly on double my pay.

I am currently on maternity leave on full pay which the broker is aware of, I have concerns that are majorly stressing me out !! So apparently with NatWest they are the best match re maternity due they will work on the salary I am on before I went off on may leave. Although I am 6 months into mat leave and still on full pay. Currently I am unsure how many days a week I am going back- it would be nice to get the house and then work out the affordability if I can drop a couple of days but probably not going to happen. The broker is aware that if I absolutely have to I would go back full time but that just results in childcare costs - we do have grandparents to help though. The broker explained that when checking the criteria apparently NatWest are “unlikely” to ask for a letter from work regarding hours , salary and return date. I feel if I was asked to provide a letter from work, this would land up me being Forced to quickly to decide how many days I am going to do when I return - and potentially being forced to tell work I will be back full time and then may loose out on being able to change this to part time.

The broker also said they might just work it out on partners salary and my current full time salary assuming I’m going back full time and that will be it, although it sounds to good to be true.

can anyone advise? :(

I think he's right to be honest. Especially as they'll be looking at last three months payslips or similar. I don't think they'll hypothesize about FT / PT and actually think they'll just assume FT continues. Really wouldn't overly worry. These things don't take too long so hopefully you won't be in a long limbo!

Thankyou wonderwoop- trying not to stress but it’s such a stressful time and I have my heart set on the house

We applied for a mortgage while I was on mat leave. We did it with Santander and they did ask for a letter from my line manager confirming the hours I will return to and start date and pay etc but your manager will also just assume you'll go back full time for now as you're legally entitled to go back to the same job you left. If you want to go part time after you've been approved for the mortgage no one can stop you! Also they asked about childcare costs but we won't have any due to grandparents helping and me and DH doing different hours so we can swap over for work, so not sure on the logistics but we literally just said grandparents would help out, they can't really know if we are telling the truth or not 🤷‍♀️ our mortgage was approved all fine though!

Thankyou lavenderfine - yeah I guess so, I did hear that different banks do have different criterias

We applied for our mortgage when I was on maternity leave and I had to show the lads payslip prior to going on maternity leave and a letter confirming my salary will be the same. I did drop my hours when I went back but they didn't know that! X

Last not lads

I applied for a mortgage on Mat leave. I had to provide a copy of my contract and the letter from my employer with my expected date of return (which I already had before I went off) and there were no issues whatsoever. I used to be a mortgage advisor and would deal with this scenario several times a week!

Bank of Ireland approved mine on SMP based on my pre-maternity earnings with no questions asked.

I moved house and remortgaged whilst on maternity leave. I just asked for a letter confirming my salary and I think I needed a certain amount of payslips. I knew I'd be doing less hours once I returned to work but they don't ask and I knew we'd be able to afford the mortgage if I worked less hours, which i did do.

We went with Halifax but I think you could go with all companies selling mortgages our mortgage advisor never mentioned anything about maternity leave being a problem.

Thanks everyone, anyone else gone with NatWest and their experience ??

Thankyou for this- was this recent?

I was on maternity when we applied for our mortgage with Natwest, in 2016. They did ask for a letter from my employer, to confirm I was returning and I think my salary. That doesn’t mean you have to stick to full time when you go back though.

Anyone else go with natwest?

I don't know who you're asking but my application was approved in April and I went back to work in May this year.

Thankyou!!

Anyone else got experience with NatWest?

Update So NatWest have come back asking for further information in relation to other factors. One being how much my commute is a day because the house we’re buying is 50 miles from my work. However they have as of yet not asked for a letter to prove I’m going back full time. They’ve also done the valuation on the property. Is acceptance looking likely?

@Crafty97 I think so. They'll be asking commuting costs as part of the affordability assessment (travel would normally be within monthly costs). Valuation unlikely to be done if they didn't think this was affordable for you.

Thankyou wonderwoop!!! Very stressful times here

Good news everyone!!!! . The lender approved the mortgage without a letter from my work. Now the fun begins !!!