Mortgage - Skipton Building Society

[gadgetfr34k]

Hi,

I have been contracting for 10 months, and looking to buy a house.

I am being offered good mortgage rate with high street mortgage adviser(as contractor), which is not available through specialist contractor mortgage advisors.

Has any one taken mortgage with skipton with no accounts available? or they need min 2 years accounts ?

And how would you rate them ?

Ta

[SueEllen]

Have you asked Skipton what you need? Have you attempted to google to see if anything comes up like their information for advisors?

Generally looking at Skipton's rates over the years they seem higher than other banks/bs.

[barrydidit]

They're brilliant. Super friendly.

When you say

i am being offered [a] good mortgage rate

do you mean you've seen it advertised and would like it, or they've offered it but not bothered with that whole income verification shiz?

If it's the former:

Me and my missus both have been contracting through same business. She had received a good offer from her employer and has decided to go perm.

We both were working through a different company earlier, and i had closed it 1.5-2 years ago.

Would the accounts from either of your previous two companies be available? Or your wife's payslips?

And if it's the latter then it's self certification time again! Yeee haw!

[Power Mortgages Ltd]

I have generally found Skipton to be very hit or miss previously regarding contractors. Some cases are fine but others they have gone against what they have initially said they would need to Underwrite the application or asked for additional information which is unatainable.

The following is taken directly from their intermediary website:

Self Employed Contractors e.g. IT/Management Consultants

In cases where the applicant is unable to meet the normal self employed/limited company criteria (2 years of Limited company trading accounts) the following evidence is required:

• Current contract must be for a period of 6 months or more
• Copy of the current contract
• If within 3 months of contract ending then proof of extension or copy of a new contract must be provided, if unable to provide then the application will be declined.

This automatically rules out contractors who have contracts less than 6 months (even 3 month rolling contracts) or in cases where you have little under 3 months remaining on the contract and cannot provide concrete evidence the contract will be extended. A letter from the Agency/End client stating the contract 'should' or 'may' extend cont be sufficient, they want confirmation it 'will' extend and I know from previous experience Agencies or end clients are often reluctant to provide this confirmation until very close to the renewal date due to IR35 reasons.

Conculsion; proceed with caution and whilst you may been been given an initial 'agreement in principle' expect them to ask a lot more questions during the Underwriting of the full application.

I would be interested to know what rate you have been offered though and what deposit you are putting down as (and it had been mentioned above) Skipton are not always the most competitive lender.

Also just because you may not meet the standard criteria with some of the contractor lenders, some of us brokers have the ability, because of the relationship we have with the lenders, to get applications agreed which fall outside criteria.

For example, if you are one of the defined professions Clydesdale Bank will deal with for contractor, their standard criteria states you must have been contracting for 2 whole years, or able to put down a 30% deposit. If you have not been contracting 2 years or have less than a 30% deposit then under their standard criteria you would not be eligible for funding but I have personally managed to get cases agreed with only a 15% deposit for clients who have been contracting a lot less than 2 years.

The only thing I would say about using a 'high street mortgage adviser' and I would assume you mean one who has whole of market access, rather than simply popping into a branch of Skipton and dealing directly with their own advisor, is that a lot of 'non specialist' advisors do not really understand contractors as well as a specialist would do and they often confuse them with fixed term contractors who are employed rather than technically self employed. This is a completely different lending criteria.

[northernladuk]

Stuff

Great posts Power Mortgages thanks.

[gadgetfr34k]

I have generally found Skipton to be very hit or miss previously regarding contractors. Some cases are fine but others they have gone against what they have initially said they would need to Underwrite the application or asked for additional information which is unatainable.

The following is taken directly from their intermediary website:

Self Employed Contractors e.g. IT/Management Consultants

In cases where the applicant is unable to meet the normal self employed/limited company criteria (2 years of Limited company trading accounts) the following evidence is required:

• Current contract must be for a period of 6 months or more
• Copy of the current contract
• If within 3 months of contract ending then proof of extension or copy of a new contract must be provided, if unable to provide then the application will be declined.

This automatically rules out contractors who have contracts less than 6 months (even 3 month rolling contracts) or in cases where you have little under 3 months remaining on the contract and cannot provide concrete evidence the contract will be extended. A letter from the Agency/End client stating the contract 'should' or 'may' extend cont be sufficient, they want confirmation it 'will' extend and I know from previous experience Agencies or end clients are often reluctant to provide this confirmation until very close to the renewal date due to IR35 reasons.

Conculsion; proceed with caution and whilst you may been been given an initial 'agreement in principle' expect them to ask a lot more questions during the Underwriting of the full application.

I would be interested to know what rate you have been offered though and what deposit you are putting down as (and it had been mentioned above) Skipton are not always the most competitive lender.

Also just because you may not meet the standard criteria with some of the contractor lenders, some of us brokers have the ability, because of the relationship we have with the lenders, to get applications agreed which fall outside criteria.

For example, if you are one of the defined professions Clydesdale Bank will deal with for contractor, their standard criteria states you must have been contracting for 2 whole years, or able to put down a 30% deposit. If you have not been contracting 2 years or have less than a 30% deposit then under their standard criteria you would not be eligible for funding but I have personally managed to get cases agreed with only a 15% deposit for clients who have been contracting a lot less than 2 years.

The only thing I would say about using a 'high street mortgage adviser' and I would assume you mean one who has whole of market access, rather than simply popping into a branch of Skipton and dealing directly with their own advisor, is that a lot of 'non specialist' advisors do not really understand contractors as well as a specialist would do and they often confuse them with fixed term contractors who are employed rather than technically self employed. This is a completely different lending criteria.

Hi Power Mortgage Ltd.

Thanks for the detailed information. I have sent you a PM with more details, about my current state of affairs.

Looking forward to hear from you

Thanks