Hi all,
Myself and my husband wanted to post our story to hopefully help others who may be looking to buy a home whilst living together in the UK (if nothing else, to reduce the amount of information searching and guidance you may need to find!) can't hurt at least.
I am a UK citizen from birth, my husband is here in the UK on a spouse visa and has been in the country for almost a year now (he arrived on his Spouse visa in Sept 2014)
We did everything we could to very quickly work on his credit rating (and assist in getting bank account etc etc, generally setup life here) as soon as he arrived including getting him his NI number straight away, added him onto the car insurance on his international license, finding him a job as soon as possible, adding him onto my bank account (making it a joint account) and getting him his own personal current account, changing household bills into his name, adding him as a permitted occupier onto my rental agreement (and when we took out a new one putting him on the agreement himself), writing to equifax, call credit and experian (the three main credit agencies) to put a note on his file that he cannot be on the electoral roll but can provide other address and residency proof), applying for a Barclaycard Initial credit card and Capital One credit card and spending little amounts each month and paying it off in full, paying a £200 deposit to get a cell phone on a contract (which was then returned after 3 months of regular payments) with O2 and he applied for for his provisional driving license and passed the theory and practical UK driving test........Phew......I think that's everything......
9 months after arriving (in May) we then spoke to London and Country Mortgage advisers who took our details and found us one (yes, just one!) single provider that would accept us both on a joint mortgage from the perspective of the spouse visa, the deal was that as long as one of us on the application was a UK citizen we could apply, turned out in the end it was Natwest. My husband had only been in his current employment for 5 weeks at the time of application (full time employed) as he had changed jobs from another full time job he didn't enjoy, so when providing paperwork we just provided the 5 weekly payslips he had had. We still had to pass all the other credit checks etc on our own, but seemed to sail through those with no problem.
We are first time buyers, we used a 10% deposit (we didn't use any government help schemes) and bought a 3 bed semi detached with a 90% LTV mortgage on a fixed 2 year rate (not a terrible rate either)
I think that's about it, but I just wanted to let others know that it is possible - it's not easy and we had to of course fit all the criteria so it might not work for everyone and all situations, but if anyone is reasonably similar to us, it can happen.
Happy to answer questions if I have missed anything and good luck everyone!
