Struggling to find mortgage/shared ownership

[ButchCassidy]

As the title says
Banks are telling us outgoings too high
But mortgage repayment including the rent would be less than our rental now
We have a large deposit but this is s gift and we can't use it to bring down outgoings
Any tips or advice
I have an awful feeling I'm clutching at straws...

Have you tried going through a mortgage broker? They will have more of an idea of who you should be applying to, if not the major banks, then building societies, specialist lenders etc
They asked us for 3 months bank statements with our application so prior to applying we really cleaned up our accounts and spending and cut out anything we didn't need. Not sure wether it matters but we were also careful about not having lots of little debits out and instead payed for our weekly shop with the debit card then used cash for small purchases from the local shop for example. So our bank statements were quite short and informative about our spending habits! We purposely didn't buy any clothes or extra bits in the lead up and as we were saving hard for the housebuying fees , straight after payday a big chunk of money was transfered into our savings account. This showed that even though we were paying rent we could afford to have decent savings. We went having hardly any savings (gifted deposit) to putting away up to 1000 a month!! Really taught us that you can live happily without 'wasting' money on stuff which we are continuing now we are homeowners. This shows the bank that you can not just afford to pay the mortgage but also that you can cover the repayments after a job loss, or pay for repairs etc. We couldn't have lived this tightly long term but short term it was manageable, we just had to wait to purchase high chair, kids new clothes, a winter coat for me, service the car and anything else which we could possible wait a few months for!
Our deposit was largely gifted but had been in our accounts a few months while we saved the fees up, and the bank didn't ask where we had got it from just asked for proof we had it (bank statement). We had debts costing around 130 a month, but we payed off an old student overdraft and an old next account in the run up so all we had left were a credit card debt in one place. Obviously don't run up any debt whilst waiting to apply!

Best piece of advice is find a good broker , we payed ours after the sale went through but he was worth every penny and was necessary with my DH financial history.

as above - get a mortgage broker - I am sure it can be sorted.

Thank you

We had this problem.

Our rent and mortgage combined was much more than the mortgage payments we would have been paying but Nationwide told us we couldn't afford it and that our outgoings were too much. We had £88 on one credit card and £66 on another, that really went against us so we got them paid off and didn't touch them until after we had moved. Apparently our £26 a month childcare was too much, as was the £140 petrol a month for 2 cars. They were so picky it was ridiculous.

We didn't bother with them in the end as the amount they were actually willing to lend just wasn't enough.

We went through London and Country, all done by phone and email. It was great and so easy. Got a mortgage with Halifax no problem, for nearly double what Nationwide were willing to lend. We didn't bother to tell them about the £26 childcare and I think we knocked a bit of the petrol plus our credit cards were clear. Don't know if those things made a difference or not. We were told that our clothes allowance each month was on the low side but me and DH rarely buy clothes and I buy the DCs as and when the outgrow stuff and its either in the sales or from the supermarkets.