How To Get A Barrister Mortgage

Securing a barrister mortgage can actually be more challenging than you might expect.

As a highly qualified professional with excellent income growth potential, you'd expect getting a good mortgage would be easy. 

Written by: Sam Hodgson

But as a self-employed practitioner with highly variable monthly income and substantial practice costs, it’s not an easy calculation for them to assess what size of mortgage commitment you can reliably service month-by-month.

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Many barristers struggle to access mortgage lending that reflects their average income and earnings potential.

Key takeaways:

• As highly-skilled professionals, barristers may be able to borrow more than standard applicants, with some lenders offering up to 5 times their income or higher, depending on the deposit size.
• Going directly to a high-street lender may not be the most suitable option because their rigid criteria can constrict your affordability.
• A specialist broker can help you get access to favourable mortgage deals. Some lenders offer up to 95% LTV, as well as bespoke terms for mortgages over £1 million.
• Junior barristers face some obstacles regarding mortgage affordability. They may not have reached full earning potential, may have debt from studying, and a number of lenders may ask for at least a year’s financial history to be eligible for a mortgage.

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Getting a Barrister Mortgage When You're Self-Employed

How Much Can I Borrow With a Barrister Mortgage?

Buy to Let Barrister Mortgages

Mortgages for Barristers - Some Alternatives

Approaching High Street Lenders

The Advantages of a Specialist Mortgage Broker

How We Can Help

Getting a Barrister Mortgage When You're Self-Employed

Mortgage finance will always be available to qualified barristers. The issue may be whether you can borrow enough to purchase at the level you’re looking at and how much your borrowing will cost you.

Without knowledgeable packaging of your application, a lender may err on the side of caution, reducing your borrowing amount and failing to offer the most advantageous professional mortgage rates for residential or investment mortgages.

*Overall Cost For Comparison

How Much Can I Borrow With a Barrister Mortgage?

A minimum of 4.5 times income is available to most borrowers. Barristers can expect to access at least 5 times their income, and some lenders will be prepared to go higher than that for members of the Bar - depending on the size of deposit you can offer.

Buy to Let Barrister Mortgages

Average nationwide rental returns of 4-5% for single-tenancy rental properties make this an attractive investment proposition for high earners (though rental returns are considerably lower in London due to higher real estate prices).

Busy legal professionals who cannot be hands-on landlords may want to pay for more management support.

Multi-occupancy Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) ("share houses" of three or more unrelated tenants) or large HMOs (five or more unrelated tenants) offer rental returns almost double the rates for single occupancy, chiefly due to reduced rental voids between tenants.

Management costs are higher, and landlords usually pay rates and bills, but more of the costs may be tax-deductible.

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Mortgages for Barristers - Some Alternatives

Independent practitioner barristers are not standard mortgage clients.

An experienced mortgage broker can advise whether an alternative to the standard interest-and-capital-repayment mortgage could suit your circumstances better:

Offset mortgage

An offset mortgage could allow you to make lower regular repayments each month while uneven fee earnings are paid into a linked savings account, reducing your interest payments.

Interest-only mortgage

Paying interest-only keeps regular monthly payments low to allow for earnings fluctuations, but you won’t be making inroads into capital repayment and reducing your overall borrowing. Most interest-only mortgages allow for overpayments of up to 10% a year, which could be paid in lump sums, and a specialist lender may be willing to allow larger annual overpayments.

Approaching High-Street Lenders

As a barrister looking for residential or investment mortgage lending, approaching a high-street bank or building society directly can be time-consuming and often frustrating.

Their requirements vary considerably as to proof of income required from barristers for mortgage applications:

• Averaged profits over two, three or five years

• Last year’s profits

• Accountant’s reference

• Accountant’s prediction of future earnings (sometimes dependent on progress into the current financial year)

• 3 months’ bank statements

• Analysis of month-to-month spending

You will want to be assured that the lender you have approached is looking beyond its standard requirements for self-employed contractors and is considering your income growth potential to offer you the most advantageous rates. Approaching a number of lenders is extremely time-consuming, which is a major reason why most barristers use an independent mortgage advisor.

If you go directly to a high-street lender, the application process won't necessarily take any longer than if a broker handles your application - if you satisfy this lender's criteria and supply them with the information they need.

However, you may not know if you meet all the criteria until several weeks after you've received an agreement in principle and their underwriter reviews your application.

Find the perfect mortgage

Not presenting all the necessary supporting documentation in the required format will delay the process.

Presenting unnecessary additional information can also slow the process if it raises additional questions. Walk-up applicants are largely powerless to investigate the process and do whatever they might to speed it up.

The Advantages of a Specialist Mortgage Broker

An experienced mortgage advisor will:

• Identify the most appropriate and cheapest mortgage type and lender for your situation
• Compile all the necessary documentation
• Present your earnings evidence most effectively, and "package" your application to suit the agreed lender’s criteria
• Chase your application through the system

In addition to being aware of all the high street bank mortgage offerings, which will sometimes be available to brokers at slightly more advantageous rates, in recognition of the time saved in processing "packaged" applications, mortgage brokers also have access to specialist lenders and private banks not available to direct approaches from clients.

Specialist lenders can take a "bespoke" view of a client's financial situation and tailor their mortgage offering accordingly.

Barristers have complex incomes for mortgage purposes. They’re also extremely busy. Our advisors are available out of hours for detailed discussions.

James Caldwell, Clifton Private Finance

High-value, low-deposit mortgages for barristers

Some lenders are willing to lend up to 95% of the value on substantial properties to members of the legal profession. For mortgages in excess of £1 million, there may be a requirement that over the first five years of the mortgage, the lender’s exposure will be reduced by agreed capital repayments.

How We Can Help

At Clifton Private Finance, we know the best specialist lenders for mortgages for solicitors and barristers.

We have direct contact with the lenders, and specialist underwriters are in place who can offer more flexible lending criteria on a case-by-case basis.

But we don’t rule out high-street lenders or private banks if they can offer better interest rates.

We can also advise with professional mortgages for paralegals, mortgages for chartered legal executives, and any other professional role in the legal industry looking for property finance.

An experienced broker can connect you with the right lender for your circumstances and guide you through the application process. At Clifton Private Finance, we specialise in arranging mortgage finance for residential and buy to let properties across the UK.

If you have complex circumstances or want an accurate idea of the options available, we can help. We take the hassle out of your mortgage application and give you the peace of mind that your property finance is in safe hands.

To see what we can do for you, call us at 0117 205 4836 or book a free consultation below.

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