Foreign currency income loans: a case study

Mrs H works abroad earning her wages in euros. Her partner lives in the UK and has no income. They wanted a 70% LTV interest only mortgage, using only Mrs H's foreign currency income and a 30% deposit. Their current lender could only offer 50% LTV on interest only, with the other 20% being capital and interest.

We were approached and happy to do the full 70% LTV on interest only as the property had over £400,000 equity and the applicants plan to sell and downsize in future.

How it works:

• Borrowers need to be a British national

• Standard conversion rate applied to convert income to GBP using the Bank of England rates

• 100% of the converted income is used for affordability, no 'haircut'

• Affordability assessed as usual using our affordability calculator 

• Property can be located throughout England and Wales

• Residential and BTL

• Max 75% LTV

Eligible currencies we accept include:

• Euros (EUR)

• US Dollars (USD)

• Canadian Dollars (CAD)

• Hong Kong Dollars (HKD)

• Swiss Francs (CHF)

• Singapore Dollars (SGD)

• Australian Dollars (AUD)

• Qatari Riyals (QAR)

• Saudi Riyals (SAR)

We will happily consider all types of foreign currency loans. This doesn’t just include being paid in a foreign currency, but also if an applicant owns a property overseas which they plan to use to repay their interest only mortgage in the UK. We will use 80% of the property overseas value as the repayment vehicle.

We will also consider regulated ex-pat buy-to-let cases. In this instance, the applicant needs to be earning in one of our accepted currencies.

Don’t forget!

• No credit scoring – all cases are assessed on individual merit

• Tailored underwriting with each case individually considered

• Our Helpdesk is available 09:00-17:00, Monday to Friday