JamesandTamsin

What an absolute headache..

Long story short; viewed a house in Jan with Mrs B and loved it but it was too expensive. House is on the market for 6 months and doesn't sell so they drop the price by 20k - house now becomes viable so we put in an offer and get ours on the market.

We accept an offer on ours (full asking price within 12 hrs ) and I phone my mortgage company only to be told they won't offer me a mortgage as I'm non UK resident! Dammit - never saw that one coming.

I've tried a couple of brokers but to no avail. My last resort is HSBC Expat which I am going through the motions of applying for at the moment.

Any other recommendations?

If someone could enlighten me as to why I am a higher risk for the banks being an expat i'd appreciate it. I thought maybe something to do with seizing assets if I were to default on the mortgage or something?

Ugh.

Millhouse

I'm with natwest international.

JamesandTamsin

Ok thanks - worth a look! Do you have an offshore account with them also? HSBC Expat insist I open an account in Jersey before I apply. Seems a little convoluted to me?

Sandboy

My own bank were all I could find, assuming you maintained a UK account

JamesandTamsin

Yep, I have active accounts with HSBC and Halifax in the UK.

P18PPS

I got a mortgage in January with the Ipswich Building Society but had to go through a broker called International Mortgage Plans. There were a few hoops to jump through but nothing too bad. best of luck

Meow

You are considered higher risk as you are not in the country and harder to chase if you default. Expats generally need a deposit of at least 25% with a mortgage of GBP 100k or more for a lender to be interested. Even then most mainstream lenders won't touch you.

I refer all my clients to a UK based mortgage broker who I have known for over 10 years and who is used to dealing with GCC based expats. He'll make the process much easier for you and won't mess you about. Email me (via link in signature below) if you'd like me to refer you.

You might also like the bear in mind the latest IMF warning about the UK property market 'overshooting' which was covered in some of the papers last week. They reckon the market is mainly overpriced and being talked up.

mikewot

http://britishexpats.com/forum/sand-...rty-uk-831457/

JamesandTamsin

Email sent - i'm after as many options as possible!

Thanks for the link Mike - I had read the thread but noted it turnt into a more "where is best to invest" discussion.

Millhouse

Yup. No big deal. The rent goes there too

OriginalSunshine

I've got an HSBC Jersey account as well. Getting a mortgage with them involved a 90 minute phone call to go through motions. Obv, bigger the deposit, lower the rate, and bigger the mortgage LTV. We got a "permission to go look" certificate, which allowed us a 500k purchase (with 20% deposit) and a 1.9% annual interest rate for a BTL (in case we wanted to rent it out in the future). The BTL part was 0.5% more expensive than non BTL, but if you wanted to rent out your property for over a year, then you needed to pay for a new mortgage of BTL, on top of what you may have just paid for a habitat only mortgage.
In the end we couldn't find anything we wanted to buy, we're moving to SEA soon, so will be too far away to buy, so will just get out there and save like billy ho and hope the market crashes at some point again.

Hippacrocapig

Natwest int

bigdave764

I'm also finding it a nightmare - we have an existing Halifax mortgage on our UK property which has a great interest rate (BoE + 0.79%) on most of the balance. However, I'm keen to withdraw equity to bring to Australia as the mortgage is only about 60% LTV and of course now Halifax refuse to extend borrowing to existing expat customers (despite us living in Australia since we first remortgaged to Halifax in 2009 - our non residency is not a new fact).

I'd welcome any thoughts or experiences on getting Halifax to budge? If we move lenders to an expat lender, our repayments will more than double on the existing borrower part based on the current mortgages on the market.

CarltonCrabbe

Got a UK mortgage as a British expat is not as straight forward as it used to be. A number of UK banks have stopped altogether offering expats mortgages. I work in financial services and we partner with Nedbank Private Wealth and they are definitely in the market for UK mortgage lending, up to around 60% loan to value.

FriendlyExpat

Natwest offer expat mortgages. Earlier this year they were apprently the only bank doing so; may not be the case any more.