Anyone got a mortgage while actually on mat leave?

[Al991]

Preferably recently. Are there lenders who will consider your full, non mat leave income?

I managed to get a buy to let one recently, it was with the mortgage works

Yes, Santander accepted a letter from my employer confirming my return to work date and salary. This was 2016 though, it was a while ago.

Yep had no issues- used a broker and used pre mat leave income and letter from employer stating when I'd be going back and that my salary was staying the same. They did want to know how we'd pay for the mortgage while I was off but provided a bank statement as proof. As far as I know it's not an unusual thing. Hope that helps!

sorry edit above- was less than a year ago too

I work for a mortgage broker. Majority of lenders will accept a return to work letter from employer as long as it contains your return to work date, the salary and hours you will be returning on along with being signed and dated and on headed paper etc!

They can’t discriminate because you are kn mat leave. Mat leave is temporary.

Yep, I did. Admittedly I was on full pay, but they didn't even question my payslips which clearly showed it was maternity pay and they didn't ask for a return to work letter or anything. We ported our old mortgage deal but did borrow more when we moved, this was with NatWest. When we got the mortgage the first time I'd just gone back to work after mat leave and they just asked for confirmation of what my new part time salary would be as I was accidentally overpaid when I went back so they just wanted it in writing as they couldn't go off my payslips.

I did a few years back, I was on full salary for 6months but had spread it over 9months so less than my full salary. I had to get a letter from my employer confirming I'd be returning. They didn't want to write it as they said they didn't know for sure I was returning! I pointed out I would have to repay 6 months mat pay and was trying to buy a house so it looked likely I'd return! They wrote it in the end and all was well!

Thanks all v helpful! I will be returning full time, can’t see why employer wouldn’t write to verify this. I’ve also saved up a vast amount of money to cover shortfall while I’m off because I was paranoid about it, so that should help!!

hearing these experiences is v reassuring as I really don’t want to stay in my rubbishy rental for the whole of mat

Can I clarify that this is true where the mortgage was dependent on your income, so for example it wasn’t just DP Income? We’d need both to borrow what we need.

Yes we were relying on both to borrow what we needed and to afford repayments x

Yes we got a mortgage based on DHs salary and my return to work salary, confirmed by my work by letter. They did take into account childcare fees though abd that was built into the affordability checks.

Thanks! @Overthebow do they ask you about your personal childcare costs? I do nights/weekends and DP does 9-5 so costs will be very low if not nonexistent. So I wouldn't be v happy if they took the average cost, which is very high!

They took our personal situation rather than average costs so you should be fine.

Yes, but in 2017. We used a broker which may or may not be relevant. Was with Nationwide.

I just needed a letter from my employer. They asked about childcare and we weren’t sure so just said 2 days a week roughly (ended up being 4..) went though with no problems. We did borrow around £80k less than we could have done though so maybe that helped.