Clients also inform us that lenders may have drastically reduced their level of earnings by 25% to 50%, to take into account future currency fluctuation risks. Additionally, most lenders will not factor into their affordability assessment that clients may be paid tax free or on much lower levels of tax than in the UK. This can often result in either a mortgage decline or clients being offered a much smaller mortgage than they ideally require and can lead to them losing out on the property or not being able to remortgage.

The typical scenarios we assist clients who earn income in a foreign currency are:

• Mortgages where one or more of the customer(s) are paid in a foreign currency even though they live and work in the UK
• Joint mortgage applications where one of the customers is in the UK and the other customer works overseas, often flying back to the UK on a regular basis
• Applications where the customer(s) are overseas and wish to return to the UK immediately
• Applications where the customer(s) are  overseas and have no intention to return to the UK

We find the most popular currencies for our foreign currency income clients are:

• US Dollar
• Euro
• Japanese Yen
• Chinese Yuan
• Australian Dollar
• Singapore Dollar
• Hong Kong Dollar
• Swiss Francs
• UAE Dirham
• Saudi Riyals

We can, however, look to assist clients paid in most worldwide currencies as well as clients working in most countries across the globe.

At RockHopper we look at all cases individually and assess each mortgage or remortgage on its own merits. Do get in touch if you want some assistance in obtaining a mortgage with foreign currency income. We offer a free initial, no obligation, assessment to see if we can help you.

*We are unable to assist individuals deriving income from, or using funds to purchase property from embargoed jurisdictions or those jurisdictions deemed non FATF (Financial Action Task Force) compliant.