As part of our “Who is the best Mortgage Lender” series of posts, this article is all to do with how we choose the Best Mortgage lenders for Self Employed cases.
Throughout the last year we received some very quirky Mortgage requests from our Self employed customers. The lenders we used varied quite considerably.
One example was a customer who had returned to the UK after living abroad. He purchased an existing business and put that money down as a directors loan. When applying for a Mortgage, we had 2 years accounts, one was for £5,000 income with the remainder being a repayment of his loan to the business and the other was for £45,000.
The lender we went to usually averages out the last 2 years figures for the customers income. However in this instance, the business had been trading for 50 years, there was a very valid reason as to why the customers income had jumped by such a large amount.
For this case, we had to get an exception agreed by the underwriter but because the alternative would have cost in excess of 4%, there was no harm in trying. The customers accountant backed up our explanation with a letter and so everything was agreed and the offer issued at a very attractive rate.
Another self employed case we had was a customer who did not have a reason for an increase in business volumes other than just general growth. For this we case, we had to go to a specialist Mortgage lender who would use just the latest years figures only. Despite this case being a more natural increases in income and also more time in the UK our options were a little limited.
This meant we could still get the customer a competitive deal but it was surprisingly more expensive than the more complex case mentioned above and with a specialist lender.
When looking at the 2 cases above on paper you would think the more steady growth with a longer history in the UK would be the easier to place and at better rates. But these 2 cases are a prime example of how it is the details that make or break a case.
When looking at which is the Best Mortgage lenders for Self Employed, we need to look at the details. Those details include things like trading history, how you take your income (PAYE, dividends, leave the money in the business as retained profits etc) and whether there have been any increases/decreasing in income/profits.
It used to be that the best and indeed only mortgages for self employed were self certified and non status mortgages but in addition to legislation banning such loans in recent years mortgage lenders have thankfully reacted well.
These days the details obviously matter but in terms of proving your income lenders in 2018 and into 2019 are a lot more sympathetic to how the self employed pay themselves.
For advice on the Best Mortgage lenders for Self Employed simply get in touch ro drop us an email.