Miles Bradley

Buying a house in the UK can seem complex and intimidating, especially for first-time buyers. “How do I buy a house” might sound like a silly question, but it’s really not, and it’s one that’s worth researching properly before you start the journey to home-ownership. With the right knowledge and preparation, it can even be a fulfilling and exciting experience. In this blog, we will guide you through how to buy a house in the UK.

Before anything else, it’s important to speak to a mortgage adviser as soon as you begin considering buying a house. They will be able to advise you about how much you need to save for a deposit , if your income will be sufficient to support the remaining loan amount and if there are any other potential issues that could be addressed before they are in a position to put in a mortgage application.

Step 1: Save for a deposit

Before you set about buying a house, you need to save for a deposit. The larger the deposit you can afford, the more attractive you will be to lenders and the better mortgage deals you will be able to access. The minimum deposit required is typically around 5% of the property value, although most lenders prefer a deposit of at least 10%.

Step 2: Get a mortgage agreement in principle

When you make an offer on a property, you will be asked to provide a mortgage agreement in principle (AIP) from a lender soon after agreeing a purchase. Due to this it’s advisable that you obtain an AIP before you start house hunting. An agreement in principle is a conditional offer that indicates how much a lender is willing to lend you based on your income and credit history. This will give you an idea of how much you can afford to borrow and the price range of properties you should be looking at.

Step 3: Find a property

Once you have saved for a deposit, the next step is to find a property. The most popular online property service is currently RightMove. It’s also worth looking at alternative websites and apps such as Zoopla and On the Market as these sometimes show properties that are being sold by smaller independent agents that you won’t find elsewhere.

Step 4: Make an offer

Once you have found a property you like, you can make an offer through the estate agent. The offer should be based on how much you can afford and how much the property is worth. The seller can either accept, reject, or counter your offer. If they accept, you move on to the next step.

Step 5: Hire a solicitor

Once your offer has been accepted, you need to hire a solicitor or conveyancer to handle the legal aspects of the purchase. They will handle the transfer of ownership, search for any legal issues with the property, and manage the exchange of funds.

Step 6: Arrange a survey

Before you exchange contracts, it’s a good idea to arrange a survey of the property. This will identify any potential problems with the property, such as structural issues or damp. This information can be used to negotiate a lower price or to withdraw from the purchase if the problems are too severe.

There are 3 levels of survey that can be arranged outlined below.

1. Mortgage Valuation: This is the most basic type of survey and is often required by mortgage lenders to determine the value of the property. It is primarily done for the benefit of the lender and does not provide a comprehensive report on the condition of the property.
2. Homebuyer’s Report: This is a mid-level survey that provides a more detailed assessment of the property’s condition. It includes an inspection of the main aspects of the property, such as the structure, interior, and exterior, and highlights any significant issues that may affect its value. It may also provide a valuation and an estimation of repair costs.
3. Building Survey (formerly known as a Structural Survey): This is the most comprehensive type of survey and is suitable for older properties, larger properties, or properties with known issues. It involves a thorough inspection of all accessible parts of the property, including the structure, roof, walls, floors, and services. The surveyor will provide a detailed report on the condition of the property, identify any defects, and recommend repairs or further investigations.

Step 7: Exchange contracts

Once you and the seller have agreed on the final terms of the purchase, you can exchange contracts. This is a legally binding agreement that sets out the terms of the sale, including the price, completion date, and any conditions that need to be met before completion.

Step 8: Completion

On the day of completion, your solicitor will transfer the funds to the seller’s solicitor, and you will take ownership of the property. You will receive the keys, and the seller will vacate the property.

Buying a house in the UK can be complicated, but by following these steps and seeking advice from professionals, you can make the process smoother and more manageable. Remember to speak to your mortgage adviser as early as possible and they will guide you through all the challenges involved. Good luck with your home-buying journey!

A mortgage is a loan secured against your home. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.

How should you prepare your documents for a mortgage application? What documents do you need? When applying for a mortgage you will be asked for various documents in order to verify your income and identity. Having these documents prepared and ready can help to make the process a little smoother. So here are my top tips for preparing your documents:

Proof of ID and Proof of Address

You will be asked for documents to verify your identity. This is usually in the form of a passport or driving licence, however, if you don’t have these we can accept a combination of other documents such as birth certificates etc.

• Make sure your driving licence is valid and has your current address on it.
• Make sure your passport is still valid and if you have any VISAs make sure that they are still in date.
• If you have recently married and you’ve not changed your documents then we can still accept them in your maiden name but we will have to supply a copy of your marriage certificate at the same time.

Proof of Income (Employed)

If you are employed you will be asked for your most recent 3 months’ payslips. If you have irregular income such as overtime or bonuses, then we might need to see an extended timeframe such as 6 months. If you get paid weekly then you will need to provide 3 months’ worth of those weekly payslips.

Make sure that you have the correct address on your payslip. Now that many people receive their payslips electronically it can be easy to forget to change your address.

Proof of Income (Self- Employed)

The documents that are required for this will be different depending on how your business is structured – for example, are you a sole trader or operating as a limited company? In most cases the required documents will be either your most recent 2 years’ certified accounts or your most recent 2 years’ tax calculations.

The income figures you use for your self-employment can’t be more than 18 months old so it might be the case that you have to report your accounts before they are technically due with HMRC.

Bank Statements

Lenders ask for the most recent 3 month’s bank statements to verify your income and expenditure. They will be looking to check that your salary goes into your account and that all regular commitments are showing on your statements.

• Make sure that they have the correct address on them. Again this can be easily missed if you get your bank statements online.
• Be aware that any gambling expenditure in these 3 months may be looked on unfavourably by a lender in their decision-making process
• If any family or friends send you money into your account, make sure these have an accurate description and do not use joke names or references, which can cause concern with a lender.

As your adviser we will always talk you through all the specific requirements for your individual case, The above are some general tips on the types of documentation many mortgage applications require, but remember that lenders can request additional documents on the application.

Why it’s so important to plan your remortgage.

As we all know, interest rates are on the increase. However, when we look at the news it tends to focus on the Bank of England base rate. Whilst the Bank of England base rate is vital in controlling inflation and an indicator of what is going on in the wider economy, in reality, unless you are on a variable rate mortgage it’s not the most important driver in dictating your fixed rate.

Why are fixed rates going up?

At the moment there are two main drivers that are pushing interest rates up. Firstly it’s the swap rates. Swap rates are the rates at which banks buy and sell money between themselves. So when a lender offers a fixed rate at a specific rate for a period of time it’s because they know how much that money has cost them and they can work out how much to sell it to you in order to work out the profit margins. These rates are increasing and the reason for that is that uncertainty in the market and economy tend to push these rates up.

The other factor is the lenders’ appetite to lend. Lenders really do want to lend at the moment however the problem that a lot of them are facing is that due to a spike in applications and a shortage of staff they are really struggling to keep up with demand. What many lenders do when this happens is increase the rates in an attempt to become less popular with advisers like myself who will always be looking to get the best rates possible. However, if all lenders are suffering the same problem then what can happen (which we are seeing now) is that lenders are almost in competition to not be within the top 3 lenders as they know that will drive too much business their way.

All these factors are meaning that as a mortgage adviser I’m seeing emails on a weekly basis from multiple lenders putting rates up. This means that waiting for a week or two to arrange the remortgage of your property can have a significant impact on the rates available to you and the total cost of the mortgage over the next 2 to 5 years depending on what we recommend you do for the next stage of the mortgage.

With this in mind, it’s vital that anyone with a mortgage that is due to expire within the next 6 months begins looking to arrange a suitable replacement for your current rate as it’s likely to increase – but we can potentially limit the increase by securing you a rate at the earliest time possible.

Why 6 months?

The reason that we recommend looking at reviewing your mortgage at 6 months is that for most lenders the mortgage offer that they issue is valid for 6 months. What that allows us to do is secure the rate with the lender when we submit your application. The lender will honour that rate even if rates increase over that time because that was the rate when you submitted the application to them.

What if rates start reducing within that 6 month period while I’m waiting to switch mortgages?

At the moment rates are just going up and if that continues then it’s likely that you will have secured a rate lower than any currently available on the market however if we see rates start to reduce we can still potentially take advantage of this. Our options are to either apply to another lender or to request a new offer on the lower rate with the existing lender we’ve applied for. I would weigh up whether any costs or fees involved with this are worthwhile for the savings you would make but I keep a constant eye on rates and trends so would be able to tell you if we need to reconsider our options within that 6 months between the mortgage offer being issued and the mortgage completing.

What if rates reduce during my fixed rate period?

Once your mortgage completes and has officially switched over to the new fixed rate you would not benefit from any interest rate reductions. This is why it’s important at the beginning of our conversations about your remortgage that we discuss how long you want to commit to a fixed rate and all the benefits and risks involved.

In summary

If your current deal ends anytime within the next 6 to 7 months please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss as planning your remortgage could lead to large potential interest savings, dependent on circumstances.

There has been lots of talk in the news recently about using 50-year or intergenerational mortgages to help younger people get on the housing ladder and reduce the gap between wages and house prices. However, mortgages already exist where a parent or grandparent helps the younger generation to buy a property.

The lenders have numerous ways of doing this and they tend to have slightly less catchy names and whilst useful they aren’t suitable for everyone. They are not usually offered by high street lenders which is why it’s important to speak with an adviser who understands the range of options available. Here are the mortgage tools that are currently available to us in order to advise on intergenerational mortgages…

Gifted Deposits.

Most lenders will allow a family member to gift them the deposit for their property. However, the family member needs to have the liquid assets for this, and they also must agree that it’s a true gift and can’t be paid back. The young person taking the mortgage still needs to be able to afford the mortgage in their own right.

Joint Borrower/ Sole Proprietor.

These mortgages are only offered by a handful of lenders, but they allow the mortgage to be in joint names but the property ownership to be in a sole name. This means that a family member could go on the mortgage to assist with affordability but would be able to avoid 2nd home ownership which can have implications for stamp duty and capital gains tax. The downside of these mortgages is that if that family member were to pass away then the loan might be unaffordable so I would always advise that life cover is taken if possible (depending on the age and medical history of the client it might not be). Also, some lenders that offer this take the age of the oldest applicant into account and this might restrict the term we can put the mortgage over and potentially make this unaffordable.

Family Assist Mortgages.

These come in many forms. Some allow a family member to deposit savings with the building society for a period of time and that allows the building society to offer a higher-risk mortgage such as a 95% mortgage. Some lenders take a charge on the property of the family member. These mortgages can in some cases offer better rates compared to a traditional 95% mortgage, however, this doesn’t really solve the problem of the person buying the property still needing to afford the mortgage in their own right and also still needing to find a 5% deposit which in some parts of the country can be a significant amount.

I feel that whilst I welcome any reform to the mortgage market that allows more people to buy their homes, I wonder if there is a way to support lenders to offer more of the options that we currently have.

Sabrina Hall

The Bank of England has recently announced they are going to scrap the affordability stress tests that were put in place following a review of the mortgage market after the 2008 credit crunch. The timing of this announcement is very strange for a number of reasons, with many feeling that while the country is in crisis over the cost of living, long-term affordability should be the current top priority.

What is the affordability stress test?

Lenders and Financial Advisors are required to demonstrate that a customer can afford the lending they are offering them, both at the current rate and on the lender’s standard variable rate (the rate it reverts to after the deal ends) plus 3%. This can often be more than double the interest rate that a customer is actually paying on the mortgage and the probability of someone being forced onto the lender’s standard variable rate is low. Both the adviser and the lender have a duty of care to inform borrowers of when their current deal ends and make sure that the customer is on the best deal that’s available to them at that time.

What impact will it have on my ability to get a mortgage?

We will not know for sure until we get more detail on how lenders are going to implement these changes, but I suspect that ending affordability stress tests will not have a huge impact.

All lenders use an affordability calculator to assess how much someone can borrow. This usually factors in the customer’s income and expenditure, but also factors in general costs of living. Many lenders use the Office of National Statistics (ONS) figures to estimate the cost of living. These figures are regularly updated and adjusted and so an affordability calculation now will take these higher costs of living into account.

The main driver of affordability however is something called the “loan to income flow limit” which is essentially a cap on how much someone can borrow against their income. Many lenders cap this at 4.5x income but some go up to 5x and higher under certain circumstances. Lenders must report how much of their lending is at these higher levels so that the Bank of England and the Financial Conduct Authority can keep track of this higher-risk lending. This is staying in place and tends to be a much bigger indicator of what lenders will lend over the affordability stress test.

In summary 

This is a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Greater affordability can push house prices up, meaning that we need to increase affordability, in turn, to make sure people can afford homes, which in turn can increase prices, and so on. This can cause spiralling house prices and potentially create a bubble at risk of bursting. These affordability restrictions were brought in because of that situation happening before Whilst the economic challenges we’re facing now are very different, we need to remember the lessons from the past.

Many contractors worry that they won’t be able to get a mortgage due to their complex income structure. Lenders do assess income for contractors slightly differently to self-employed or employed applicants, but an understanding these differences can help to get the best mortgage for you. An experienced adviser who has specific knowledge in this area will be able to guide you through your options.

Income and Affordability Assessments.

Mortgage lenders need to establish if a mortgage is affordable to you right now, and if it will continue to be affordable in the future. For an employed applicant, this is pretty straight forward because the income is the same each month. For a contractor they have to factor in the significant fluctuations that can happen over a single year as you move between different projects.

Most lenders that specialise in contractors and understand contractor income will use a multiple of your day rate. The actual multiple varies between lenders, but is typically between 46 and 48 weeks. For example if your day rate is £300 this would be multiplied by 5 (days a week assuming those were your contracted days) and then by 48 weeks, which would give you an income of £69,000 per year to use for your affordability assessment.

Some lenders treat contractors as self-employed for the purposes of the mortgage assessment, with these lenders you need tax calculations and tax year overview documents. Your adviser would look at both options and assess which is most favourable to you in terms of income and lender’s rates in order to be able to make a full recommendation.

Employment History & Gaps Between Contracts.

In order to assess how stable your income might be the lenders may ask for certain criteria to be met, such as having at least 6 months remaining on your existing contract, having a contract of 12 or more months lined up, or having previously been renewed by your current client. It’s vitally important to talk to an adviser well in advance of looking for a property because the timing of your mortgage application in relation to your contracts could have a significant impact on the number of lenders available to us.

The sector you work in can also have an influence on a lenders assessment. I had a case recently where the contractor had only a few months left on a project, however due to them being in a sector which has an experience and skills shortage (and after looking at the applicants experience) they decided that he would be able to get a new contract without any issues at the end of the current one.

Lenders may also be wary if you have lots of gaps between contracts for longer than 3 months at a time. The reason for this is that it might be a sign that you are struggling to find replacement contracts. We know however that in some cases you might deliberately plan gaps between contracts to allow for holidays, down time or childcare. If this applies to you your adviser will potentially need to exclude some lenders when looking to make a recommendation.

Minimum Income

Lenders can sometimes seem old fashioned in how they assess risk. We live in a world where contracting and flexible working is more common than ever, however lenders still consider contractors to be slightly higher risk than an employed applicant. Due to this some lenders have put in place a Minimum Income Criteria which means that in order for your income to be considered in the application you need to have a minimum income above a set threshold which is typically around £50,000 and can be as much as £75,000. Not all lenders have this in place and so please don’t be alarmed of your income in below this level, it just means that your adviser will exclude those lenders from their search when they are looking at the most competitive interest rates for you.

Umbrella Companies

If you work under an umbrella company on a PAYE basis, some lenders will ask for additional documents such as payslips and P60’s in addition to your contractor information in order to verify the umbrella company. From the payslips and P60’s they will be able to establish that tax in being paid correctly on your behalf.

In summary, whilst there are additional factors to take into account when it comes to assessing your income as a contractor, working with an adviser can significantly increase your chances of getting a mortgage. Most importantly working together with someone who has expertise on mortgages for contractors at an early stage in preparation for this step will give you a much greater chance of getting the best deal for your circumstances.

If you would like to talk to someone in more detail please contact Kind Financial Services today on 0121 796 6655 or [email protected]

A MORTGAGE IS A LOAN SECURED AGAINST YOUR HOME. YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE OR ANY OTHER DEBT SECURED ON IT.

Three letters are all over your social media feeds, your inbox and the trade publications you read right now: EPC. Energy Performance Certificates have been required for any building being sold, let or constructed since 2007, and measure how energy efficient a building is on a scale from A to G. Scoring a building takes into account a wide variety of factors including insulation, windows, and heating systems.

The increase in conversation around EPCs can be attributed to a few key factors. From 2018, landlords needed to ensure their properties were at least an E rating for new tenancies. Last year the government has announced that in 2025, that will increase to a minimum C rating for new tenancies, expanding to all tenancies in 2028. The penalty for a property not having a valid EPC will also increase substantially, from the current £5,000 to £30,000 in 2025.

That means anyone currently renting out property, or buying and building property to let, needs to start planning ahead now. There have been some gloomy reports of landlords deciding to sell off their portfolio rather than bring them up to the necessary standard, but much of the industry recognises this as an opportunity. More energy-efficient homes are cheaper to live in and run and will increase tenant satisfaction, potentially delivering better returns for longer.

The cost of upgrading houses is a serious consideration though, and one that we’re beginning to see solutions to. Several specialist lenders are now offering green Buy to let loans that factor in EPC grades – a more energy-efficient home can net the borrower a better deal. I think over the next 12 months we’ll see more and more green deals both from the High Street and alternative providers, enabling developers to create future-proof portfolios of property that are 2025 ready.

If you’re concerned about how the changing EPC rules could affect your plans, get in touch today and one of our advisors can discuss future growth plans and your current situation.