This week's case study highlights how Alexander Hall helped a couple living and working in USA refinance to purchase a new property in the UK.
Our clients' challenge
Our clients are living and working in the USA. They are a married couple, one has a UK passport, the other German. They own a Buy to Let property in South West London, and they are looking to raise capital on this property in order to purchase another Buy to Let property in the Central London area. Their bank could not assist due to the fact they resided overseas. They found a lender who could lend to them on an ex pat basis, but they would not do this in joint names due to the husband's EU nationality status.
On top of this, another difficulty they were facing was that the property they were purchasing had a short lease, 64 years. They had been advised by the banks they had spoken to that this lease length would also be too short to get a buy to let mortgage on the property.
Alexander Hall's solution
We were able to approach a lender who would lend to these applicants despite their USA residency status. The lender did this on an ex pat basis, taking a flexible approach due to the fact that they are a British and EU married couple. They agreed this outside of policy as this could be classed as an ex pat application. They also took a flexible view on the property, on condition that they applied for a repayment mortgage. This was not a problem as in fact the clients had a preference for a repayment mortgage, looking to use this to pay the mortgage down over the term. Both applications have gone to mortgage offer, with the clients delighted with this outcome.
