UK Self Employed Mortgage

To get a mortgage you have to prove that you are financially sound and will be able to keep up repayments. Being self employed or say working on a short term contract, makes this harder for you to prove. If you have at least 3 years accounts to use as proof that your business has done well, then you should have no problem getting a mortgage from any lender.
If you are employed full time you are guaranteed to be paid and you can show wage slips to prove your earnings. Lenders feel they are taking less risk with full time employed people.

As lenders look at it, if you are self employed you have to chase things like payments and invoices, you could be working on a contract, if so what will happen when that runs out, will you succeed in getting a new contract. They want to see proof that you will be able to make the repayments for the whole term of the mortgage.

If you are self employed, your accountant is likely to minimize the amount you declare as income for tax purposes. It is ironic that having a good accountant can actually be your downfall in the mortgages market. By downplaying your profits it could turn out that when a lender looks at your accounts, their assessment of how much you can borrow is based on an income that doesn’t reflect your ability to pay.

A main stream lender will want to see a few years audited accounts before offering a mortgage to a self employed person. There are some lenders who are more flexible, they have realized that you as a self employed person are going to have times when you earn a high income and then times when you earn very little and they try to accommodate this.
If proof of earnings is a problem then there is still another way you can get a mortgage, self certification could be your answer.

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