Foreign national mortgage for Malaysian citizen paid in US Dollars via Cayman Islands

Foreign nationals can face additional challenges applying for mortgage finance to buy property in the UK if they have no credit record in this country. We were able to advise our client on the steps she should take, and found a lender who wouldn’t apply punitive rates to a foreign currency income.

The Scenario

Our Malaysian national client, who’s the CFO of an aviation leasing company based in Bangkok, was marrying her British fiancé and looking to buy a residential property near to his home in Leicestershire.

Her annual income of US$200K is paid via the Cayman Islands, tax-free. She had a 25% deposit to put down on a £370K property, but she had been quoted rates of over 3% by one lender.  

The issues we identified: she had no clear right to remain in the UK, and she had no record on UK credit bureau checks – no UK credit cards, no utility bills, she’s not on the electoral roll.

The Solution

We identified a lender who will offer 75% LTV mortgages to foreign nationals. They will accept foreign currency income, apply their own nominal tax deductions to tax-free income, and use the same type of credit checks as we do here at Clifton.

We advised our client to wait a couple of months and meanwhile:

• take out a credit card with her UK bank
• get her name added to her fiancé’s utility bills
• start depositing the cash which would be used for the purchase deposit into her bank account, to show transactions taking place and the traceability of the funds

We checked her credit rating each month on our in-house credit check system (which wouldn’t affect her credit score), and as soon as she appeared with a positive credit record we submitted her application to the lender.

In the meantime, she also got married: a happy ending.  

More about mortgages for non-UK citizens