First-time buyers in Ipswich with a new job and a gifted deposit

Clients: A couple in their late twenties · Branch: Ipswich · Need: A gifted deposit mortgage for their first home

The challenge

Sarah and James (names changed) had an offer accepted on a two-bedroom terrace in Ipswich for £225,000. They had saved £8,000, and Sarah’s parents had offered a £15,000 gift towards the deposit.

Two things stood in their way. James had started a new job three weeks earlier and was still on probation, and their own bank’s online calculator offered them less than they needed.

What we did

• Our adviser searched the whole of the market for lenders that accept applicants on probation, as long as they have stayed in the same line of work. James had been in the same industry for six years, which several lenders were happy to consider.
• We sorted the gifted deposit paperwork at the start, including the gift letter and proof of funds, so it couldn’t hold up the application later.
• We placed their gifted deposit mortgage with a lender whose affordability assessment covered the £202,000 they needed, at 90% loan to value (the mortgage as a share of the property’s price), on a five-year fixed rate.
• We talked them through life insurance and buildings insurance, so their home and their repayments were protected from the day they moved in.

The outcome

The mortgage offer arrived 16 days after the application went in, and Sarah and James got their keys ten weeks after their offer on the house was accepted. Because the deposit gift was documented properly from day one, the lender raised no questions about it.

Buying your first home? Talk to our first-time buyer advisers.