The clients approached us seeking help securing funding for their first buy-to-let property. They were both self-employed and were looking to purchase a property above a commercial premise. This is not permitted by many lenders and of those that would consider this type of mortgage, many will only lend to experienced landlords.
The aim was to secure market-leading funding of 75% loan to value at a rate of 2.63% which was the most competitive in the marketplace. We first had to convince the lender to consider the application as it was out with their standard lending criteria.
We were already aware of the difficulties that we could face trying to convince many of the mainstream lenders to accept this type of case so we approached a specialist lender who was likely to be more flexible.
At first, we encountered resistance from the lender for a number of reasons including that the applicants were self-employed and the commercial property being a café. The clients were also seeking to secure the mortgage as quickly as possible and so this also had to be taken into consideration.
However, we consulted thoroughly with our clients to gain a comprehensive overview of their self-employment background and from that, we were able to convince the lender that the client’s profile was sufficient to ensure that the mortgage was fully affordable.
“The client is delighted to have secured the mortgage loan at a highly-competitive rate and to be able to do this within their strict timescale.”
We were able to quickly complete the application once we had received final approval and the lender was then able to instruct the valuation and produce an offer after just 3 days leaving the client wholly satisfied with the entire process.
