Solo Mortgage Advice

[MelanieSheWasReallyNice]

Hi!

I wondered if any knowledgeable mumsnetters could give me some advice

I own my house and I’m looking to move. My partner lives with me, along with our young son.

I understand that for an affordability calculation the mortgage provider will not consider my partners income (even though he pays 50% of bills)

My question is: he pays 100% of the childcare bill from his salary - do I need to declare this?

I do intend to have this conversation with a broker but hoping I might get a quick idea here of whether the childcare bill will effect affordability or not

TIA

I think the answer is it all depends on the lender. I had some lenders who not only counted me responsible for 100% costs of my kids, but also counted my husband as a dependent (he actually earns the same as me and pays half of kids costs). They and would hardly lend me 1x salary. However other lenders seemed much more normal and happily was able to get a mortgage just fine in the end. Hopefully broker can help you.

Thank you @MotherOfCrocodiles

It’s baffling really - I understand that since the mortgage is mine only all of the direct costs such as utilities etc are considered only my responsibility, this makes sense… doesn’t make sense to me that unrelated costs should be considered solely my responsibility

It does really depend on the lender, but I know some would include it and I suppose the logic there is that they are your children and if your partner turned around and disappeared tomorrow or decided he no longer wanted to pay 100% of childcare you would be left paying it which does impact affordability.

My lender still counted 100% of the childcare against me, despite having a court approved financial order. Their reasoning was pretty much that he could be hit by a bus and not able to pay and I'd have to pay it to keep working.