Million-pound mortgage for self-employed law partner starting a new job, but currently on maternity leave

Some lenders are unreasonably wary of offering mortgages to clients who are currently on maternity leave. And law partners face additional challenges, being classed as self-employed.

The Scenario

Our client is a senior lawyer and the family breadwinner, who was house-hunting while she was on maternity leave with their first child.

She called us wanting to know what their borrowing limit might be (her partner isn’t in paid work).

She’d just accepted a job offer as partner with the London office of a major US law firm.

Her earnings, paid in US$, would be substantial, but largely based on earnings and performance, on a points-based system.  

The challenges: she would effectively be newly self-employed, with no track record of earnings in this role. And earning in a foreign currency.

The Solution

US-dollar earnings aren’t a huge stumbling block for UK citizens working here in the UK. They just mean that a number of lenders who don’t want to handle greenback payments are knocked out of consideration.

We took her application to a private bank which has a large number of clients with foreign earnings. They applied a 20% currency risk adjustment her salary, but that still left plenty of room at 85% LTV for our clients to buy their £1.45M Dulwich house.

Plus, this lender offers a generous £30K overdraft facility for HNW clients, which would allow this family to do the kitchen re-fit that would suit their culinary enthusiasm.

And the bank compensated for their currency adjustment by offering a very acceptable rate of 2.24% for a two-year fix.

We went for a two-year term because by then our client will have a record of employment with this new firm which we can leverage on her behalf to get an even more competitive longer-term deal.

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