THE SCENARIO
For some of our international clients, complications arise surrounding their mortgage applications. This is due to laws in their home country that impede the process over here. Recently an Indian national came to me looking to get a mortgage on a property within an exclusive new riverside development on London’s South Bank. He had previously studied in the UK and had just arrived back on an entrepreneurial visa. He had no UK income, and all his funds came from the family business back in India, of which he was a shareholder. The family was keen to expand their property and business interests in the UK.
The purchase price the client had agreed for the property was £3,000,000. Frustratingly, however, it has since been valued at around £2,500,000. This is a trend in the market we are encountering more and more often, as many new build properties are now valued at a lower price than they were when originally purchased.
Luckily, this did not affect my client too much. He was looking to borrow £1,275,000, so we still had more than enough equity for the lender to accept the deal. He wanted an interest-only loan specifically so that he was able to make overpayments.
Furthermore, the development was due to be complete 3 months from my client’s application, which ramped up the pressure as we had to arrange proceedings in this tight time frame. At Enness however, we specialise in finding solutions to complex mortgage cases.
OUR SOLUTION
This complicated case required some in-depth research to find the most appropriate lender. Several private banks that we approached in the first instance simply declined the enquiry. However, we soon found one well-established British bank that would consider my client’s circumstances.
The process required gathering a history of his business and a letter of approval from his internationally recognised accountancy firm. This allowed the bank to consider my client as self-employed based on his shareholder status within his family’s company.
I was able to negotiate an exceptionally low rate of 1.99% discounted variable for 2 years over a 25-year term. The loan was a very attractive 1.49% above the lender’s base rate and there was just a 0.5% arrangement fee.
My client was delighted with this outcome, and I was very satisfied to be able to secure him this excellent product in a relatively tight time frame. I am very proud of the frequency of these exceptional cases that we complete at Enness.
Information contained in our case studies is for market and illustrative purposes only. In some cases, these may be made up of multiple cases and are for illustrative purposes only.
Some case studies are made up of enquiries that have come into the business, not all business completes, and the posting of a case study does not represent a completed piece of business.
