It has been a little while since we wrote any success stories. Thats not because we have not had any, thankfully we have had plenty. But generally speaking most of our applications have been quite “vanilla” for the last few months.
The situation
Earlier in the year we received an enquiry from a locum Doctor. The customer worked at a hospital and was looking to obtain a mortgage. Generally speaking you would think placing a Mortgage for a qualified Doctor would be a piece of cake and generally speaking it is.
However in this case, the Doctor was a locum. This can throw a bit of a spanner in the works with some mortgage lenders. This is due to the fact that the type of contract is not a permanent one. Many lenders have criteria surrounding that which can make it difficult to fit.
As an example, a lot of lenders need you to have been employed for at least 6 months, had your contract renewed at least once and have 6 months remaining on the new contract. For a locum this is not always possible as it can just be a rolling contract or many short term contracts. In the case of locum or bank staff, lenders might want to see a 6-12 month history. They will then take your previous 6 months payslips and average that out to determine your income.
There are examples though where some lenders will make exceptions or are a little more relaxed. This is due to the fact it is the NHS and Locums are generally in demand and well qualified.
What we did
To be honest with you, whilst not straight forward in the true sense I think a lot of brokers will have a pretty good idea of where to look for these types of applications. You would like to think this is a bread and butter type of application.
We researched this case from scratch. It has been maybe 18-24 months since we had to look into something similar so it never hurts to just check nothing has changed. Once we had a shortlist of lenders, we went to have a look at who was coming out the cheapest.
The customer was happy with the rate (unsurprising given they were one of the cheapest lender on the market at the time!). We submitted the application and the lender was generally fine with everything.
The application went through smoothly and the offer was issued within a couple of days of supplying the required paperwork.
Summary
This is a relatively simple success story I think. The customer had a good job, worked in a great industry for possibly the biggest employer in the country. As a mortgage lender, they can be confident this customer is never going to struggle to get a job.
The issue was the fact his contract was a locum and not permanent. However there are ways to overcome this no matter how new to the role and in this case we were able to get him one of the cheapest mortgages on the market.
If you are struggling please do get in touch. We are big supporters of the NHS and would genuinely love to help you get on the ladder.