Did you recently got a mortgage as a self employed?

[goldenpeach]

I posted this in property but no reply, let's see if somebody here has some views...

Despite being on financial consultant number two, it seems that conditions have worsened for the self employed. Unfortunately our income has gone down in recent years and although we are asking for a 'small' mortgage and forking out the rest in cash (equity from sale of previous house), we are having no luck.

So far only Woolich would lend us some money but not the full amount.

hi,

we recently went to see a financial advisor as we were moving house and wanted to move our mortgage- not add to it and had no problem paying it. we had 50% equity.

my husband had to be self employed for 2 years or they didnt want to know, as we were no where near this we had to wait for him to get a job, employed and 3 months later mortgage agreed!

good luck in your search!!!

We borrowed from the co-op I have been self employed for 5 years and have accounts to back this up. They did a few deeper enquires, but got the mortgage okay. We have been co-op banking customers for 10 years so trying your own bank may help.

Thanks for replies. We tried coop but they said that as we had dip in income, they couldn't tell for sure unless we applied (for which you pay a charge). Bit worried we could waste money by failing the affordability test (although mortgage is about 300 a month, 1/3 of the rent we pay now).

One lender offered just over half what we needed. We might have to let the house go.

So much for downsizing our working life!

goldenpeach, I saw your post in property and although I don't have any advice, just wanted to give you moral support. I'm self-employed (although I don't live in the UK) and think the difficulties now associated with getting a mortgage for self-employed people are absolutely outrageous (especially when they want to move like jampop - that is awful).

Argh - we need more self-employed people, not fewer!

We're going through this at the moment. Both self-employed but both have three years accounts from a chartered accountant. So far it doesn't seem to have caused any problems (fingers crossed). Though we have a track record with our bank and are already 10 years into a mortgage so that probably helps.

I think the key thing is the three years accounts.

The three years of figures signed off by an accountant is an absolute must.
It's how it was before the stupid bandwagon of interest only self cert got going.

In OP's case, can their accountant not do a letter quoting two years plus a reasonable projection.
Or you also produce an afforability breakdown showing that you can cover a 20% fall in house price AND a rise in interest rates to 2% then it should help.

We last borrowed extra two years ago and I had to growl at them that I WAS an accountant to accept my version of my figures!!!

Thanks everybody, we had to pull out, unfortunately. Should have bought a year ago when they were throwing money at us.

Ironically work is getting better for us so we are earning more than last year.

update: thanks for info, I got a mortgage by going to a lender who lent to me before.
no need to have my accounts signed by an accountant!

after trying four if not five brokers, I recommend going face to face with the bank.

we found out the brokers just thought we weren't worth the effort because of the low commission they would get.

Well done on sorting it.

I had forgotten to say that we have always had to go to a bank direct since becoming both self employed.
We had one of the very first buy to let mortgages (in 1996) and the broker was great for that but he made £1700 quid out of it!!
We went halves on his commission (as the rules were at the time) but all he'd actually done was make three phone calls.

When do you move?

We have to put our offer forward again. The house is still on the market and no takers, which is strange for this town as we had to fight people off. Funnily enough we got the offer on 24, yes, Xmas eve, when we met the bank person!