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Ways to apply
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up your payments
As a responsible lender, we’re careful when it comes to offering mortgages. Eligibility criteria are below – if you’re not sure, please give us a call.
All customers
To apply for a first direct mortgage, you and any joint applicant must:
- be a permanent UK resident and UK tax payer
- be able to provide evidence of your income and outgoings to show that you can afford the mortgage.
| Repayment | |
|---|---|
| Minimum loan | £10,000 |
| Minimum salary | - |
| Maximum term | 40 years |
| Minimum term | 2 years |
| Maximum loan to value (LTV) |
95% |
How we assess the application
In order to assess self-employed applications responsibly, we need to ensure we take into consideration any future government backed loan liabilities, such as Bounce Back Loans (BBLs) or Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS).
Our underwriters will deduct any government backed loan liabilities from the latest year’s net profit figure to give us an adjusted net profit position, as these will be ongoing costs for the business.
We'll accept self-employed incomes which include government Self-Employed Income Support Scheme (SEISS) grant income.
Depending on your circumstances, we'll need to see the following documents:
| Sole trader, General Partnerships or Limited Liability Partnership with fewer than 200 partners |
|
| Limited Liability Partnership (LLPs) with 200 or more partners | A letter from the company finance director or accountant detailing your earnings over the past 2 years, dated within the last 3 months. |
| Limited company director with 25% or more shareholding |
If there are multiple Directors within the business, and the financial accounts don't confirm the distribution of salary to each director, we’ll need evidence from either of the following:
|
| Limited company director with less than 25% shareholding | We'll consider you to be employed - please go to the 'Permanent employment' section. |
| Self employed customers trading less than 2 years |
|
If you're in permanent employment we'll need to see evidence of your income. The table below summarises the documents we'll need, depending on how frequently you're paid:
| Income Type | Basic income (including any permanent allowances)1 | Shift allowance1 | Variable income (bonus/overtime/commission)12 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly | Latest 4 payslips | Latest 6 payslips | Latest 6 payslips |
| Fortnightly | Latest 2 payslips | Latest 6 payslips | Latest 6 payslips |
| Four Weekly | Latest payslip | Latest 3 payslips | Latest 3 payslips |
| Monthly | Latest payslip | Latest 3 payslips | Latest 3 payslips |
| Quarterly | N/A | N/A | Latest 4 equivalent payslips or award letters showing payment. The payslips or award letters must include a payment that has been paid within the last 3 months. |
| Half Yearly | N/A | N/A | Latest 4 equivalent payslips or award letters showing payment. The payslips or award letters must include a payment that has been paid within the last 6 months. |
| Annually | N/A | N/A | Latest 2 equivalent payslips or award letters showing payment. The payslips or award letters must include a payment that has been paid within the last 12 months. |
Where an award letter is being used as evidence of income, it must clearly state the exact amount that will be paid within 3 months of the date on the award letter.
General property criteria
All properties must be in the UK and be of standard construction with a working kitchen and bathroom.
At the moment, we don’t lend on Buy to Let properties or where the property has been bought under a right to buy or shared ownership scheme. The property must be used as your main residence and not for business purposes.
For leasehold properties, we’ll only lend if there is at least 30 years left on the lease at the end of the proposed mortgage term.
We count a property as being new build if it's less than two years old or has never been occupied in its current format. If you're borrowing against a new build property:
- we may lend up to a maximum of 85% Loan to Value (LTV)
- if you have an LTV greater than 75% you’ll need to have a minimum deposit of £25,000.
Your property can’t currently be up for sale.
If the property has more than 15 acres:
- you’ll need to confirm there are no agricultural restrictions attached to the property and that it’s only used for personal use
- we’ll only be able to lend you up to 75% of the purchase price or valuation, whichever is the lowest.
- we may lend up to a maximum of 90% Loan to Value (LTV)
- we may not offer a mortgage on a flat if it's in the same building as a commercial property
- if the building containing the flat has more than 4 floors, it must have a working lift
- we may lend on flats within ex-local authority blocks with 6 or fewer floors (subject to LTV restrictions)
- we generally can't offer lending on freehold flats in England and Wales. However, there may be some circumstances in which we can lend – please call us for further details. Freehold flats in Scotland with outright ownership are acceptable
- we will consider lending on flats in England which have suitable remediations schemes, and those where leaseholders are protected under the Building Safety Act. In such cases an EWS1 report is not required
- for properties in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland where the EWS1 report confirms that the property does not meet minimum safety standards, we will be unable to proceed with an application.
Offset Mortgages are only available to existing Offset Mortgage customers
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Think carefully before securing other debts against your home. Your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up repayments on your mortgage.