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Getting you started: Advising you on your mortgage options

Our goal is to ensure you understand the mortgage application process and the types of financing options available to you. Whether you’re a first-time home buyer in the UK or have been through the process before we can help. We will prepare an analysis of your mortgage options, which might include multiple scenarios. In all cases, you will get to see the best market options in the variable and fixed mortgage duration ranges.

We use the report to guide you through your options and find the best mortgage to suit your circumstances. Once a decision is made on the best option, you will then receive a detailed key facts document for that mortgage product and a suitability report which explains the rationale for our advice.

View an example of one of our client reports.

 

Expat mortgages

Mortgages are available for British expats who want to purchase a UK property.

Our qualified mortgage advisers use the following approach to source best mortgage for you:

  • Understand the factors relevant to the borrower
  • Agree on the criteria of the transaction
  • Research the best deals in the market that meet these criteria

A mortgage adviser will conduct the research and establish the relevant factors, agree upon a set of search criteria with you and then conduct a search of the market to find you the best mortgage.

Applying for a UK mortgage as a foreign national

There are many factors that affect your ability to obtain a mortgage as a foreign national. Mike Abbot, our director, highlights some of the key issues:

Foreign national mortgages in the UK

Expert UK mortgage advice and services

Contractor mortgages

Most lenders in the UK consider the income earned by a contractor to be the salary and/or dividends they pay themselves during the tax year. In most cases, this income is unlikely to exceed the higher rate tax threshold.

Those contractors whose gross turnover to company exceeds this amount will find themselves facing a cap on their mortgage borrowing. We have arrangements with a number of lenders, allowing us to consider other aspects of your income picture. By doing this, contractors can be placed on a similar footing to an employed borrower.

We will allocate a mortgage adviser to you to conduct the research. They will establish the relevant factors, agree upon a set of search criteria with you and then conduct a search of the market to find you the best mortgage.

 

Self-employed mortgages

The self-employed borrower is perhaps one of the more complex types of borrower, simply because there are so many variants of self-employment.

A director of his own company who owns more than 20% of his business is self-employed and treated very much the same as a sole trader and a member of a limited liability partnership or other partnership. To successfully advise self-employed borrowers in their loan applications, we need to have a detailed understanding of the structure of earnings and historical tax records.

Expert UK mortgage advice and services

Director mortgages

UK company directors applying for mortgages encounter many of the same issues that self-employed individuals face with their applications. It’s important that there is a good understanding of the individual’s historical personal earnings and those earnings still endowed in the retained earnings.

Shareholding structures need to be clearly understood, particularly where more than one member of the household is a director. It can be difficult to get the case agreed if changes are made to corporate structures shortly before a mortgage application. We advise directors making changes to their corporate structures (when a mortgage is on the horizon) to speak to us sooner rather than later.

We use the following approach to source the best mortgage for company directors:

  • Understand the factors relevant to the borrower
  • Agree on the criteria of the transaction
  • Research the best deals in the market that meet these criteria

We will allocate a mortgage adviser to you to conduct the research. They will establish the relevant factors, agree upon a set of search criteria with you and then conduct a search of the market to find you the best mortgage.

 

Foreign national mortgages

Every lender in the UK has different criteria for non-UK nationals when it comes to offering mortgages. This can be a minefield for foreign nationals and can result in credit scores being mounted up with the wrong banks and damage to the credit score profile.

More than 90% of our clients are foreign nationals and we regard ourselves as specialists in this area. We understand the specific rules each lender has for visa type, time in the UK, time remaining on visa and so forth.

We would encourage clients who are foreign nationals to speak to us before approaching banks directly.

Expert UK mortgage advice and services

First-time buyer mortgages

Residential mortgages are available to first-time buyers who want to purchase a UK house in which they and their family intend to live. These are by far the most popular and widely offered mortgages in the market.

 

Remortgages

Remortgages occur when your existing mortgage deal expires or if you want to move from one provider or deal to another.

How much you can borrow?

Mortgage Calculator

Calculate

Use our mortgage calculator see how much you could borrow and what your monthly repayments may be.

interest rate curves

View rates curve

Our interest rate curves will show you how mortgage pricing is affected by the duration of the mortgage as well as the loan-to-value ratio (LTV).

Expert UK mortgage advice and services

Our approach

 

The advice that you receive

We will advise you in the form of a written report, which will set out the various options available to you.

This report will highlight:

  • All the repayment options
  • The pros and cons of each option
  • A final recommendation

View an example of one of our client reports..

Expert UK mortgage advice and services

Our research models

We have two models for our mortgage research:

  1. Standard cases

    "Standard" cases are classified as those cases where:

    • You (as the borrower) have Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR) in the UK or possess a British or EEA passport
    • You are employed or, if self-employed, have two years’ tax returns that fit the borrowing requirement
    • The loan-to-value (the mortgage as a percent of the property value) is 80% or less

    Your circumstances are likely to fall within the lending policy of most lenders; this allows us to conduct our research without needing to make special arrangements with any lender.

    We will provide you with a range of deals that best meet your criteria, advising you on your best options going forward.

  2. Non-standard cases

    "Non-standard" cases are those cases where:

    • You (as the borrower) are not a British passport holder and do not hold ILR
    • Your earnings cannot be backed up by two years' P60 employment income in the UK
    • The proposed mortgage amount exceeds your annual employment income
    • You are a contractor using a limited company and/or umbrella company structure
    • The loan-to-value (the mortgage as a percent of the property value) is more than 80%
    • You are purchasing a shared ownership property
    • The proposed mortgage is greater than £1,000,000
    • You are not a resident in the UK

    The "non-standard" route is followed where a case falls outside of standard lending policy. In these instances, we are required to spend additional time researching your case as well as time to argue it with underwriters.

    Although our research is chargeable, we try to ensure that we don’t do chargeable work if the result is unlikely to yield anything. If we believe your mortgage will not be approved at this time, we will inform you at no charge and suggest that the research be performed at a later stage. In some cases, we cannot confirm whether the mortgage will be approved without doing the research. In these cases, we will give you the option to proceed or not before we begin researching.

Our fees

Get an idea of how much our service will cost you

We will charge a research fee upfront when we do the mortgage research. This fee will either be £195 or £375. If the success fee from the lender is above £750, we will not charge you (the borrower) any further fee. However, if the lender success fee is below £750, we will charge you a top-up fee on completion of the mortgage.

For example: Miss Jones engages us to handle her mortgage for her. She is a UK national and needs a 70% mortgage to buy a £250,000 house (i.e. a £175,000 mortgage). We charge her £195 at the outset and conduct the research for her. She gets the invoice from us when the research report is produced.

We then apply for - and successfully achieve - the mortgage. On completion, the bank pays us 0.35% of the loan amount (£612.50).

Our minimum success fee is £750; we therefore invoice Miss Jones a top-up fee of £137.50 on completion.

More information on UK mortgages

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Sable Private Wealth Management Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority 222501. Sable Private Wealth (Pty) Ltd, an authorised FSP, is regulated by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority under licence number 48122.