Need a bit of advice or info on contacts please! I have a mortgage on my home here in Spain which i have had for 3 years now, I have about 55% equity in my home and want to release some of this equity so i can make some improvements and increase the value of the house, whilst also bringing my mortgage repayments down. The catch is that I have no proof of income!! Anyone know if this is possible and have any details of companies that could help me??
Thanks!

Hate to state the obvious, but have you asked your bank? Are you on pension?

not on a pension, unfortunately have a good few more years to go yet!! Don't think bank will be interested with no proof of income, no harm in asking though i suppose! but think i need to explore other avenues that might be possible as well.

well they may well be suspicious about you having no proof of income, but at the end of the day they will take security against your home so their risk is reduced from that point of view

Do you have residencia, if so there are a number of bnaks that offer beter terms to people with residencia than to those without, ie, longer repayment terms and lower interest rates.

we do have residencia now, and so maybe we will have to head down and see our bank manager before we search elsewhere. I fear that he won't want to know though now that we no longer work in UK. I have seen a company advertising remortgages without proof of income but feel a bit wary of companies like this.

Has anyone had any experience with companies of this nature before??

Before you have any dealings with a company of this nature check out this web site:

http://www.costa-action.co.uk/

This is a shady piece of advice. Friends of ours spoke to their bank with a bunch of 'contracts', 'invoices' and 'remittance slips' that where from various UK and Spanish organisations, ahem, proving some kind of gainful employment and salary. As another poster said, they tend to worry less about proof of ability to pay as they are quite happy re-possess if necessary.

I'm well aware that this, strictly speaking, is fraud, but it does go on...

think we will have to go see the bank manager and see what he says, like you say, shady thinkgs go on in Spain and maybe the bank manager will be able to pull some strings for us!! I'll keep my fingers crossed!

go to the bank - there are lots of people out there who will provide phoney proof of income but they will charge you the earth and of course its illegal - there was a guy in Alicante prosecuted for this last year I think it was

(we were looking to re-mortgage to buy a rental place which we decided against in the end but) when I went to bank and they told me the re-payments as said "can you pay them" I said "yes" and that was they , they never once said I would have to provide proof and as has already been said I think they will repossess if you fall behind

hi, my girlfriend just put the laptop under my nose and asked me to reply.

I work in sales for a mortgage Lender in the UK and have been involved in financial services for a number of years.

firstly - not sure if you are discussing Spanish Mortgages or UK.

what you are looking for is a Self Cert mortgage - where you declare your income, but do not prove it.

normally you should be able to have a maximum of 90% Loan to value with this type of mortgage, but recently there are a few lenders that will lend up to 95%. ie. if you house is worth 100,000 you can borrow 95,000

as this type of mortgage carries more risk than a status one the interest rate will most certainly be higher. but not hugely.

also, the "cleaner" your financial history is the better and the more you will be able to borrow. with your amount of equity you shouldn't have a problem as there is very little risk to the lender.

Contrary to what has already been said here -self cert mortgages have one of the lowest repossession rates there is and there is NO relevance to how lenders would treat you if you defaulted on your payments.

having said all that - you would have to explain why you are wanting a self cert mortgage - normally because you are self employed, but many employed people have self cert mortgages.

as for Spanish mortgages - a number of UK and US lender are now entering this market and i am sure self cert and sub prime rates are available.

hope this helps - let me know if you need any more information.

Hiya Featherybum

Good post well informative .. I was going to advise on this thread the self cert route but you beat me to it ..

Reasons for Self certifications vary and do carry higher interest rates as you say ..
A reason for not being able to prove income would be a self employed person who couldnt show wage slips etc.. But knows what he earns ..

I dont know why the mortgage people worry anyways as long as the property lend ration is no more than 70% , they can just reposess the home !!

reckon they just like to generate more paperwork so they can justify and grab there set up fees personally

Thanks for all this info its very helpful. I now feel a bit more confident about the mortgage companies I have spoken to as they mentioned the US banks. Featherbum, do you think that the US banks are safe to deal with for mortgage purposes??

hi - its rich again.

the US banks are fine to deal with.

the company i work for is owned by a US investment bank - one of the biggest investment banks in the world.

lets put it this way - there is a UK lender called GMAC. anyone ever heard of it? its the 6t biggest UK lenders and is owned by the US and was originally founded by General Motors! - i think this is one of the biggest companies in the world.

dont worry about the US thing. worry more about the rate and any fees involved in setting up the mortgage and eairly repayment charges (ERC).

if you take a fixed rate - normally you will be tied in to the mortgage for that fixed period. if you want to move or remortgage you will have to pay a fee. normally a % of outstanding balance, sometimes 5 or 6%.

good luck. rich.