Porting mortgage while on maternity leave

[BigBabySmallMum]

I’m hoping someone can help or has been through this before and can advise.
I found a new house and agreed to buy it, but I was just waiting for my current home to sell which it just has. So now we can proceed.
I want to port my mortgage from the current house to the new house- keeping the loan amount the same, but the new house is much bigger and more expense. So the LTV will be less. I have savings set aside to cover the difference in price.
However I just started maternity leave at the end of January. Will this affect porting the mortgage over ?
It’s on my last pay slip so I can’t hide it.
Any ideas on what to do? I really need to move to the bigger house for space for the new baby.
Any thoughts or help appreciated! Bit nervous that the bank could turn around and say no to porting the mortgage.
(I have saved up over years worth of mortgage payments to cover time whilst I’m on Mat leave so I can definitely pay. It’s more that they will look at affordability and my income on Maternity leave is next to nothing! I’m worried they will say I can’t afford mortgage and say no to porting it. !
is there any way to get around this?
thanks so much

Are you single?
It might be different but I’m married, we ported our mortgage no problem on maternity leave, went with the same provider so didn’t need to prove anything as far as I remember.
Also got the mortgage in the first place on maternity leave - that time they just wanted a letter confirming my salary.

If you’re porting it I don’t think you have to show any evidence of payslips / spending etc, they literally just transfer it over online. If you ring the banks mortgage line and speak to someone they will clarify the process for you.

Also, if your last home sells you might have a set time period to port the mortgage over? Eg 6 months. Make sure you know the process in case you sell but your next purchase falls through and end up with family etc

Hi, I don’t have any advice but we are currently going through the same, although we are getting a new mortgage with the same lender as we are buying a new property.

I’m also a bit worried about maternity leave. I started my mat leave in November and I’m due to go back in September 24.

Our broker only asked me for a payslip from October before I went on mat leave and one from January with my latest mat pay. She said they may need a letter from work to confirm my return date and salary but haven’t heard anything on it yet. So far, they’ve just asked for more payslips from my husband as he’s paid weekly with overtime and night premiums.

If you are porting and not adding more I don’t think they will challenge it.

I had a similar situation. The advisor from the bank wanted paperwork a letter from my employer showing I was on maternity leave and my return date. I pointed out I have a legal right to return so they just wrote that down and no one asked again. If they ask for payslips give them your last full pay ones and the last few that show you are in mat pay as that shows your normal pay.

Oddly they did not ask me about future increases to my childcare costs which seemed very surprising if they want to do an affordability check.

We remortgaged to a new lender the last time i was on mat leave and all i had to do was provide a letter from my employer stating when i was coming to back to work and what my salary would be would i returned. It was no problem at all.

Did they ask for the letter quite early on? We submitted ours 10 days ago and so far, they’ve done our property valuation and are apparently finishing the last reviews; but asked for more
payslips from husband yesterday.

Do it now.

I had a dreadful experience with Nationwide Building Society when I returned to work.

Nationwide Building Society informed us that because I now had to pay for childcare there was a risk I would lose my job and me and dh couldn’t afford both the mortgage and the childcare. I showed them my employment contract (3 months notice), and my childcare contract (1 month notice) and demonstrated how, if I couldn’t get a new job ( unlikely as I’m in a very employable career) then we could STILL afford mortgage on DH income if I was a sahm.

Nationwide REFUSED to port the mortgage. I believe it was a cynical ploy because we had an excellent mortgage deal they wanted us off. I was absolutely livid and complained, but that process was so long we would have lost the house as the chain couldn’t wait for the bureaucratic shitshow that was their complaints procedure.

So my answer is be wary. And don’t bank with Nationwide, they are arseholes.

Oh dear!! When was this?? We are with Nationwide currently, have had a mortgage for the past 5 years with them and we are getting a new one with them too! I’m worried now!

We were using a broker but he told us we would need it and so we got it all ready. It was a few years ago now but i think they asked for it quite early in the process.

Are you moving with a partner or single op? We moved when I was on maternity and had to port our existing mortgage and take out a sub mortgage for the additional borrowing. They just wanted to know when I was returning to work, and if I'd be dropping any hours I previously worked. The bank just took my word for it to be honest. But I'm not sure my wages were taken that seriously anyway as my husband was the higher earner, anyway. They seemed far more invested in his earnings and pay slips than mine. It's all just based on affordability, so if possible, any credit card debt, or loans should be paid off or at least substantially reduced before you apply, to make your monthly outgoings less, and your affordability higher.

Thank you! I guess I will
have to wait and see if they want it from
me.

It’s the same with us at the moment. So far, the broker just took my word for it and haven’t asked for any letters from work.

They also seem to be more invested in my husbands’ earnings as they came back and asked for more payslips from him as he gets paid weekly with overtime and night premiums etc. He earns about £30k more than me. I would assume
if they wanted things from me then they would have asked for them by now?

It was within the last decade. We had a great mortgage deal, it was costing Nationwide money…it just really smelled of sharp practice. We did get an apology and some bs about “Nationwide system having some new settings our managers are not used to” which apparently meant they couldn’t use a common-sense override (the manager agreed we should be eligible to port the mortgage but “couldn’t make the system agree”).

We didn’t pursue for financial compensation as we were too busy working and parenting (though the decision cost us a lot, at least we didn’t lose the house we wanted to buy).

What it did do, was buy my everlasting loyalty to HSBC who sorted out a mortgage for us within a week and saved our chain.

I would never again rely on porting a mortgage it was an idiotic process which Nationwide dragged out to the point my stress was through the roof. Avoid them.