Mortgages

The following seven Mortgage Advice areas are the most common things our customers come to us for help with. This is often because they have been turned down by a high street lender or their own bank. In some cases, we even hear customers telling us that their own bank has told them they wouldn’t be eligible for a Mortgage at all. Most of the time, this is simply not true.

See below, the seven most common reasons our customers get in touch with us. And remember, our Advisors are not limited to the seven below advice areas. If your circumstances do not directly match the below, we will still have Mortgage Advisors we can put you in touch with.

Buying a property for the first time is proving more difficult than ever. House prices and living costs, such as rent, have been increasing at rates faster than wages. Meaning saving for a deposit of at least 5% of the properties value (£200,000 X 5% = £10,000), has proved increasingly more difficult for first-time buyers.

So, if you have the minimum deposit of 5% saved already, congratulations the hardest part is over, providing you meet the rest of the lenders criteria. Now, you need to speak to an Advisor who can guide you through everything, provide you with all the different options out there and access all Mortgage Lenders (there’s a lot of them).

If you don’t, it’s not the end of the world, there are still plenty of options out there providing you have the income to support the amount you are looking to borrow. These are listed in greater detail below, under alternative to deposits.

A Remortgage is a lot simpler than people think, it is the simple process of moving your Mortgage from one lender to another. The main reason you would look to do this is because your current deal or fixed rate is coming to an end with your existing lender, meaning you will be moving onto a likely more expensive rate. Or, you are already on the lenders expensive Standard Variable Rate. If you have been with your lender for a long time and never changed deals or if you notice your Monthly Repayment will change every now and then. The likelihood is, you are on the Lenders Variable Rate.

Remember: at the end of every deal, you should always look to change to a new one. Whether that’s Remortgaging to a new lender or moving to a new deal with your current lender (Product Transfer).

You should always consider two options when looking to change your current Mortgage:

1. What deal or fixed rate can your Existing Lender offer you
2. What is the cheapest deal available with a different Mortgage Lender

Our Mortgage Brokers will automatically consider both these options when they complete their Research and Recommendation to you.

If you want to purchase or already own a property that you want to rent out, you will require a BTL Mortgage or permission (consent to let) from your current lender to do so. BTL is often deemed higher risk to lenders than Residential Mortgages, so often are charged at a higher interest rate. This is because lenders feel you are much more incentivised to repay the Mortgage on your own home than on an Investment. For this reason, lenders are also much stricter when Mortgaging BTL properties.

Obtaining a Mortgage is a much more complex process than purchasing an ordinary Residential Mortgage. There are often many more things to consider when it comes to finding the best Mortgage Lender available to you.

Bad Credit is a wide-ranging term, used to describe anything from a missed payment on a Credit card, all the way down to Bankruptcy. Whether you can obtain a mortgage with previous adverse credit will be down to 4 things. Your deposit size, when the adverse occurred and for how much, and how bad the adverse credit was. 

If you want to obtain a Mortgage and you have previous Bad Credit, never try to tackle it yourself. Applying to multiple mainstream lenders, unsuccessfully will just damage your credit file even more. In addition, most Specialist Lenders that deal with Bad Credit, will only deal with Mortgage Advisors. This is usually because you need to be provided with Advice and they do not employ Mortgage Advisors of their own.

Self-employed in Mortgage terms can be a broad definition which is used to describe Sole Traders, Partnerships, Limited Company Directors and some Contractors. 

For Sole traders and Partners, their share of Net Profits will be used to calculate how much they can borrow. Net profit is a person’s income, before they have paid tax on them but after their expenses have been taken away.

Each lender views Self-Employed applicants differently. Just because you don’t fit one lenders criteria, doesn’t mean there won’t be other lenders available to you.

Seeking the assistance of a Specialist Mortgage Advisor will always be essential when it comes to getting the best Mortgage when you are Self-Employed. Especially if your case is particularly complex, as discussed further on.

Contractors can define a wide range of different employment scenarios from a wide range of different industries. Whether it’s Zero Hours Contracts in retail or CIS Contractors in Construction. They are both defined as Contractors, but both are considered very differently by lenders.

The most common Contractor enquiries we get from Applicants are Construction Industry Scheme Contractors (CIS Contractors) and IT Contractors. A lot of the time these types of Contractors come to us after either being declined by a lender or being offered a much smaller Mortgage amount than they require. The reason for this is most lenders view Contractors as Self-Employed and therefore require years’ worth of accounts and go off the Net Profit figure shown within their accounts. This is often much lower than their actual earnings as the Net Profit is the final figure after all of their expenses have been taken off.

However, there are lenders out there which won’t deem CIS and IT Contractors under the same criteria as they do Self-Employed, and each will have their own ways of calculating and assessing these types of income. We know which lenders are best to go to when you need to maximise the amount you can borrow. Contact us to speak to one of our Mortgage Advisors which Specialise in this area.

Right to buy is an excellent way to get onto the property ladder without the need to save for a deposit. You can even borrow extra money to spend as you wish – maybe for home improvements.

Right to Buy is where the secure tenant of a local council or approved housing association, is given the option to purchase the home they live in at a discount of the properties market value.

The amount of discount your eligible for is dependent on three things. Where in England you live, how long you have been a council tenant and whether you live in a house or a flat.

Some Mortgage lenders will allow you to purchase your Council property with no deposit and in some circumstances even allow you to borrow more than Right to Buy Offer price.

The above Specialist Advice Areas is where we receive the most enquiries. However, there are dozens of other areas which our Advisors can help you with. Some of which are incorporated into many of the above Specialist Areas. For example, Shared Ownership and Help to Buy Mortgages could be assisted by an Advisor which Specialises in First Time Buyer Mortgages.

Some are more standalone Advice Areas such as Expat or Foreign Income Mortgages. We still have Advisors which Specialise in these areas, so if you do have more niche or individual circumstances, please make us aware in your enquiry so we can take this into account when we consider the best Advisor to put you in touch with.

Speak to one of our qualified, regulated and highly rated Mortgage Advisors. Simply complete our short enquiry form below and we will get one Mortgage Advisor which specialises in your case, to give you a call. They can answer any other questions you have, provide you with a free non-obligatory quote and/or talk you through the process in greater detail.

All our Mortgage Advisors hold the CeMap qualification (Certificate of Mortgage Advice & Practice) and are Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.