I’ve just come off the phone to my current mortgage provider. I rang up to see how much I’d likely be able to borrow if I wanted to purchase a larger house using equity in this house as a deposit.
I was hoping that because of my regular overpayments to my mortgage as part of my ‘mortgage free in 5 years‘ thing, and my reasonable income for a working mother of 2 with my experience level, that I might be able to secure at least enough to upgrade from my tiny 2 bed to a medium sized 3 bed.
Unfortunately, because I am now fully self-employed, any income I’ve received over the past few years in full time employment no longer count. Because I spent much of the past 2 years in full time employment with only self employment on the side, my official SE income for 2014-15 for example is just £1700 (despite overall income being much, much higher).
So, as it turns out, despite my reasonable financial status, repeat steady business and an average income more than enough to sustain my house & kids etc, I don’t even qualify for my existing mortgage deal let alone a new one.
I understand why affordability checks are in place on mortgages: to prevent people getting in over their head and ending up bankrupt and the bank losing money. But it makes absolutely no sense to me that they can’t look at the bigger picture in terms of income and net worth. Because I blew all my savings on a website I can’t even put together a bigger deposit.
Time to kick my mortgage free thing into gear and get back on the money-saving track, I guess.
11 May at 8:33 pm
Ugh rules are the same here. Buy a house before you switch to self employment or wait 3 years to prove you earn a decent enough income to provide for yourself.
But if you’re marrying Gaz can’t you get a loan on his income?
Or do you prefer to have your finances seperate?
12 May at 11:32 am
A joint mortgage is a possibility but is complicated by multiple factors, so it would have been nice to think I could have sorted it on my own. I guess really I’m being overly dramatic – I should appreciate the fact that I have a house etc already!
19 May at 3:11 pm
Ughhhhh I feel your pain!
We’re renting a tiny 2 bed flat which isn’t big enough, is chaotic and has such forced me into renting office space to work in.
We have a good deposit, but can’t get a mortgage – no one will touch us due to being self-employed, despite the fact we’d be about £600 a month better off…