Conveyancing Solicitors Kent

Getting a Mortgage

How To Get A Mortgage

If you require a mortgage your lender will want to know you can continue to make your repayments and continued best practice and regulation in the industry is designed to ensure they only lend to qualified applicants.

Strict rules are applied when assessing whether to lend to individuals and your individual circumstances will be analysed in detail to ensure affordability.

It is not only the mortgage payments today that you need to be able to cover you will also need to factor in future interest rate rises which can make a huge difference to your monthly costs.

Applying for a mortgage

We would always recommend hiring the services of a mortgage broker to search, apply and manage your mortgage application. The advantages of most mortgage brokers are that they have the knowledge, experience and access to search across a broad range of the financial market to find and compare the best mortgage for you.

The mortgage advisers we recommend are regulated by the FSA (Financial Services Authority) and provide an end to end mortgage application process for you. This includes sourcing the best product to completing the application and dealing with all of your queries.

What do I need to prove when applying for a mortgage?

Lenders look closely at your income and outgoings and will only lend if they feel comfortable that you can afford the repayments. Typically when applying for a mortgage you will need to provide evidence of your income and outgoings.

These include:

  • Household utility bills
  • Current debt level
  • Typical monthly expenditure
  • Day to day expenditure including travel, food, clothing and childcare
  • If you are employed you will have to provide evidence of salary, bonus and overtime in the form of payslips and bank statements
  • If you are self-employed you may need to supply current and historical business accounts, payslips (if employed by a limited company), personal and business bank statements and tax returns
Deposits

Most mortgage lenders will require a minimum deposit of 10% of the purchase price although there are some lenders who may lend on just 5%. It can be a hard task to save up this level of money after your current day to day requirements however the more you can afford to put down the better it will be for you in the long run.

Opening a Government help to buy ISA is a great way to help you save for your deposit where you can earn up to 2.58% interest tax-free on your money. If the funds saved are used towards a property purchase the Government will contribute an additional 25% free of charge.

First-time buyers

If you are a first-time home buyer the most important thing to consider is whether you can afford to purchase a property and manage the monthly financial commitments.

Although lenders will try to work with you in times of financial difficulty it is always important to keep in mind that your home may be repossessed if you do not make your monthly repayments.

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