I don’t really know where to start with this. We’re feeling pretty bruised from our experiences so please be gentle. In 2020 I went on my first maternity leave from my full-time job. Prior to maternity leave I had just re-qualified and been promoted so made around £51k. After my maternity leave I went back to work part time and brought in £26k. In 2022 I got pregnant again and with multiple interest rate rises and mortgages going insane, we crunching some numbers and realising our mortgage was coming up for renewal in 2023, we decided we had to move to create a better life/work balance and allow me to continue to be part time to look after our kids.
In Jan 2023 we sold our house on outskirts of London for £380k and moved to be closer to my family in a much cheaper part of the country. My partner got transferred with his company and his fulltime salary is £51k. This is almost double average income for this area. My job is virtual/wfh with occasional trips to london so I plan to return to it after mat leave. Our childcare costs are massively reduced as it’s a cheaper area and also my mum will be having children 2 days per week. We have a deposit of £75-80k and combined salaries of £77k. Initially we were told we could borrow up to £380k with a mortgage in principle so started looking at houses. In March we offered on a place we both loved which cost much lower than this (we needed to borrow £280k) and were advised we should be easily able to port our old mortgage over saving us ERC. However we were point blank refused this and not given an explanation as to why. We got this news when my daughter was 2 days old and the stress it caused was immense. Our mortgage broker was also extremely confused by this decision. This transaction lost us £3000 and weeks of time in the process.
Frustrated and confused, we picked ourselves up again and applied for another lender. We easily passed the initial affordability checks and were told by our broker that it should be a simple process to get the funds we needed. It’s been 5 weeks now and they have made us jump through so many hoops, provide excessive amounts of evidence (nearly all related to my maternity leave and pay) and today we’ve been told that they’re only willing to lend us £255k!!! This is £25k less than we need and applied for. We don’t have this extra money anywhere and are pretty devastated as we will now lose this house and the money spent on surveys and solicitors.
When we’ve looked at the numbers, we’ve basically been offer 5x my partner’s salary. My income seems to have been completely disregarded, even though I have provided numerous bits of evidence stating my salary, terms and conditions as well
as intention to return to work. This smacks of maternity discrimination to me. We have excellent credit ratings, well-paid permanent jobs and a sizeable deposit. We are also trying to buy a house considerably cheaper than the one we just sold. I am seriously worried about what we can do now as our credit ratings have suffered as a result of numerous credit checks and we have lost thousands of pounds only to be in a much worse position than we started. Is there anything I can do to challenge this?