BTL Mortgage Based on Overseas Income for Expat in Taiwan

Almost all UK lenders will only use your property’s rental income for your affordability when you come to buy or remortgage a UK Buy to Let property – they won’t look at your personal income that you’re earning overseas.

But expats are often just renting out the home they used to live in – not an in-demand rental property that’s optimised for income generation. So, their maximum borrowing amount often falls short, despite being comfortably able to afford it.

Here’s one solution that very few people are aware of – except for specialist mortgage brokers like us.

The Scenario

Our client was an expat living in Taiwan and was renting out his £850,000 home in Reading where he used to live permanently in the UK.

He had an existing outstanding mortgage of £425,000 that he needed to refinance – plus, he wanted to borrow an additional £160,000 to purchase another UK investment property outright along with some of his cash reserves: a new off-plan buy to let that would finish being developed later this year.

Using standard expat buy to let mortgage calculations, he’d only be able to borrow around £285k against that rental income.

The Solution

Leveraging our expat BTL expertise, we identified a lesser-known British Building Society willing to assess affordability based on the client’s Taiwanese earnings instead of the rental income. One of - if not the - only lender in the UK to do this.

It would need to cover the £585,000 mortgage value and his accommodation and living costs in Taiwan. Fortunately, as he was a high-earner in Taiwan, he could meet the criteria, despite the complication of only having been with his current employer for 6 months.

This is too short for most lenders as they want to see consistency and reliability, particularly with foreign currency earnings – but we still managed to get the deal through.

It’s a case that demonstrates why speaking to a specialist expat mortgage broker is well worth your time, even if you think you’ve exhausted all your options.