obtaining a mortgage before getting ILR?

Hello,

This is the situation: my husband and I found a lovely house here in Liverpool and had our offer accepted.  We found some good mortgage options online and went to the building society that had the best rates.  The application process went pretty smoothly and we thought things were moving forward normally...until today.

My husband got a call from the mortgage advisor we met with last week. She told him that because I don't have ILR yet, they can't give us a mortgage because his salary alone is not enough to cover it.  She's going to try to work it out with her manager that it will only be in his name for six months, then when I get ILR in June, it will go under both our names.  We should know on Monday, but if the answer's negative, then we're back to square one and may lose the house.  Hubby made a rather cross phone call to the Home Office to see if anything could be done, but they weren't particularly helpful.

Has anyone gotten a joint mortgage before they or their partner obtained ILR?  I saw another thread about consulting an independent mortgage broker, which is definitely an avenue we will pursue if needed, but if anyone can recommend a bank or building society they've used successfully, that will much appreciated too.  Thanks in advance.

first off- i would recommend that anyone looking at UK property use an independent mortgage advisor.  they can look at the whole market- not just one bank's options.  much, much better.

secondly- i bought a house here, by myself, while i was on FLR(work visa).  I had to have at least 18-24 months left, and i had to have a sizeable deposit (over 10%).  i ended up going with abbey- not becuase they'd give me a mortgaege- but b/c they were willing to get a survey done very quickly.

good luck...

as for asking the home office... i wouldn't call them for advice... they have nothing to do with mortgages.

Thanks.  My husband was calling them more out of frustration than anything else, we both know that they won't have any influence over the situation.  We'll be getting financial advice today.

Our situation is a little bit different - we are both American on work permit visa - but some of our experiences may apply. I was here a few months ago complaining that we were turned down for a mortgage because of not being ILR. Eventually we went to a mortgage broker and he found us a pretty good deal that was happy with our status. He said since he is reguallarly in contact with lenders he can phone them up and talk to managers and ask if they have anything that might fit our situation - so he has an advantage over regular people like us. Our solicitor with whom we were arranging the purchase has an independent mortgage broker who works through their office, so he was convienent, pleasant to work with, and it was in everyones interest for him to find us a good deal (since the company who provides his office wouldn't make a sale unless he found us an acceptable deal). I'm sure ou can find others by opening the phone book and guessing, and that may work out well, but the way we went was good. You might ask your agents if they have someone they work with.

Good luck. I bet you can work something out. I know how you feel, check the grievences page for when I was in this situation back in July.

David

We were able to get a mortgage this Sept. in both our name even though I did not have ILR yet.  We explained that I would have it in Nov and the Building Society said no problem.

Thanks very much for your replies Sheri and David.  Sheri, if I were getting ILR before the end of the year, the building society might have said ok, but since there's still six months to go before I can apply, I think that was what put them off.  David, I will look up your post, I don't come here too regularly so I probably missed your original post.  Glad it's worked out for you.

I got in touch with an independent financial advisor today and gave him the details of our situation.  He promised to get back to us ASAP.  He's someone I've met several times through work and I have confidence he'll do the best he can for us.  Husband has found a couple of other independent mortgage specialists and set up appointments for us with them this week and next.  I have a lead on a solicitor (the one we were going to use was through the building society, so obviously that's not going forward), so that may be another source of info.  We were slightly reluctant to go to the mortgage advisor based at the estate agent's, as they already think we have a mortgage arranged.  But I suspect we'll end up there this weekend if the first two contacts don't work out by Friday.