Expat residential mortgages.
Expat Residential
Expat residential mortgages for UK nationals.
British expats who are working abroad may wish to keep hold of their family home, for example for family to continue to live in while they are working abroad.
Whatever your reason for needing an expat residential mortgage we’re here to help. Where others see numbers, we see people and we take time to understand your unique circumstances.
Here to help
Find an expat residential mortgage.
Ready to find an expat residential mortgage? Using our mortgage product finder you can see what’s currently on offer.
When you’re ready to add up the costs, our mortgage repayment calculator can help you with the sums. For details about mortgages in general take a look at our mortgage information page.
Tips for Expat Borrowers
Our expat residential criteria explained.
To help you get to grips with what we offer, here’s some useful information about our expat residential mortgage criteria.
- Properties must be in England or Wales and used for family residence (not on a rental agreement)
- At least one applicant must be a UK passport holder. Most countries of residence will be considered except for those which are UN Sanctioned
- Applicants must be employed or in receipt of pension income, with at least one applicant earning a minimum of £40,000 or equivalent. When assessing affordability we can consider employment, pension and investment income.
- We accept foreign income for the following currencies: Euro; US Dollar; Canadian Dollar; Singapore Dollar; Hong Kong Dollar; Swiss Franc; Norwegian Krone; UAE Dirham; Kuwaiti Dinar; and Qatari Riyal.
- We’ll consider applications where the deposit has been built up in a foreign currency as long as this is held within the UK or your country of residence.
Found all you need to know? Take a look at our expat residential mortgage deals or get in touch so we can explain what to do next.
FAQs
Frequently asked questions about
expat residential mortgages.
An expat residential mortgage is for British expats to buy or remortgage a property which is their family home. If the property will be offered for long-term rent to tenants this would require an expat buy to let mortgage.
Our mortgages are available for employed or retired applicants who earn in GBP or currencies: Euro; US Dollar; Canadian Dollar; Singapore Dollar; Hong Kong Dollar; Swiss Franc; Norwegian Krone; UAE Dirham; Kuwaiti Dinar; and Qatari Riyal. One applicant must earn at least £40,000 or equivalent.
One of the key things we’ll need to do is make sure your mortgage is affordable, both now and should circumstances or interest rates change. This means we’ll carry out what is called an affordability check. We’ll need to know details about your income, so you’ll need to prepare evidence of this. Alongside your employment, we can also take into account pension and investment income.
We will also need to know about your financial commitments and expenditure, so you’ll need to provide information on things such as travel expenses, leisure costs, how much you spend on groceries and more.
We’re happy to chat about the process so please get in touch so we can help you.
No. If you will be letting the property to tenants you will need an expat buy to let mortgage. Alternatively, if you are renting to family members this is classed as regulated buy to let or family buy to let and treated differently when it comes to affordability.
We say yes! We’re happy to consider first timer buyers for our expat residential mortgages. We know mortgages can seem confusing at the best of times, so if you need a helping hand get in touch and we’ll be happy to talk through the process and answer your questions.
If you are returning to the UK permanently and looking for a standard residential mortgage we usually require you to have resided back in the UK for a minimum of 12 months, however in some circumstances can consider this sooner so get in touch to see if we can help.
Building relationships
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We took out a mortgage on our house to help children get on the property ladder and have found Ipswich now Suffolk Building Society a friendly, professional and human organisation – just like building societies and banks used to be but so few are these days. A great team of people.
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I have always found it very easy to contact Suffolk Building society by phone, or by email or on line, and the staff are always friendly, knowledgeable, helpful and efficient. For me, this is the most important feature of a good building society.
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Enquiries
We have conversations, not algorithms.
Our decisions are made by experts, not computers. We need to calculate the financials, but we understand there’s more behind a mortgage than the numbers on a page. We can’t promise to lend to everyone and anyone, but we’ll consider most applications on an individual basis.
Ready to go? We’d love to hear from you. Get in touch with our friendly and knowledgeable team.
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Call 0330 123 0723
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