Bank of Ireland - Unreasonable?

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finny

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We are already with BOI (4 years) and we're now trading up. The original mortgage was based on my salary only as my husband, self-employed, did not have 2 years' accounts at the time. We have a deposit down and have received a deposit on our home. We applied to BOI on 1 December through a broker for the new mortgage (310k on house value 420k). My husband works in event services and was severely impacted by Covid. He was on PUP until Dec 2021. So, again, we are applying based on my salary only. We have managed to build up savings again in the meantime.

I am a qualified Tax Adviser with 17 years of experience, working in a Big 4 and I prepare and file our income tax returns. He has no overheads, assets etc and it's very straightforward so we have not had to engage an accountant. (Incidentally, he will from this year as I've enough on my plate now with work and the kids). We are fully up to date with taxes. We have provided BOI with all documents, tax clearance certs, bank accounts for my husband also. Even though his income is not being taken into account for the mortgage. BOI are insisting on a letter from his accountant re tax. Our broker has been in discussions with them and trying to get it through, constantly telling me there'd be no problem - after 3.5 months I was getting frustrated and now we're concerned we'll lose our sale and purchase. On Friday he finally agreed to apply to another lender, Avant.

Two q's:
1. Are BOI being unreasonable? Has anyone experienced this before?
2. Does anyone have experience with Avant in terms of how long they take to issue loan offers and whether we will face the same issue with them?

We can't be happy at all about the sale and purchase as we're concerned we won't be able to get a mortgage. It's been a long few months and we haven't even gone to contract stage!
 
Is your husband named in the application? In which case any lender would require accountant’s Tax Affairs cert/letter for both of you.
Avant are painfully slow too unfortunately.
 
mustang01 said:
Is your husband named in the application? In which case any lender would require accountant’s Tax Affairs cert/letter for both of you.
Avant are painfully slow too unfortunately.
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Yes as we're married and it's the family home, Inunderstand we both need to be on the application. He doesn't need to have accounts prepared by an accountant for any other reason and they didn't require this 4 years ago. So, I'm surprised we need it now. I didn't appreciate this was a requirement as we obviously would have engaged an accountant in the meantime. If this is a standard requirement then I suppose we're screwed?
 
finny said:
Yes as we're married and it's the family home, Inunderstand we both need to be on the application. He doesn't need to have accounts prepared by an accountant for any other reason and they didn't require this 4 years ago. So, I'm surprised we need it now. I didn't appreciate this was a requirement as we obviously would have engaged an accountant in the meantime. If this is a standard requirement then I suppose we're screwed?
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If he doesn’t have an accountant and his earnings arent part of the application then really his tax clearance certificate should suffice. Could be just a box-ticking exercise by the credit team but I’d imagine your broker should be able to clarify it with them for you.
If you do want to try an alternative and have all docs ready to go, AIB’s online portal is good and they have a 10 day AIP response turnaround, so you could apply online yourself (without the broker I mean), just as a backup?
 
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Hi finny

Avant is the most conservative of all lenders. I doubt that they would give you a mortgage based on self-certified income.

You need to go to a mortgage broker immediately as it's a non-standard application. They will apply to AIB and ptsb on your behalf.

You could also try to get an accountant to put a set of accounts together for you quickly. Come to think of it, you should do this anyway.

Brendan
 
finny said:
We applied to BOI on 1 December through a broker for the new mortgage (310k on house value 420k).
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Ah, I see you have a broker. Has he spoken to Avant to see what they think?

On Friday he finally agreed to apply to another lender, Avant.
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Ah, doesn't sound like a great broker. Wanted to just apply to one lender to save himself the work.

Maybe apply to ptsb and AIB directly yourself.

Brendan
 
finny said:
Two q's:
1. Are BOI being unreasonable? Has anyone experienced this before?
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Although you're not including your husbands income as part of the application, I'm assuming the risk for a lender here is that your husband could have a huge tax liability that will affect your ability to repay in future. Or it could just the that they're following the same procedure as if your husbands income was included - it's pretty unusual that income for one applicant to be excluded from an application so maybe they don't have a 'standard procedure' for it.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Hi finny

Avant is the most conservative of all lenders. I doubt that they would give you a mortgage based on self-certified income.

You need to go to a mortgage broker immediately as it's a non-standard application. They will apply to AIB and ptsb on your behalf.

You could also try to get an accountant to put a set of accounts together for you quickly. Come to think of it, you should do this anyway.

Brendan
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We were just saying this after I posted. He was on PUP for most of 2020 and 2021 so should be straightforward for an accountant. Thanks.
 
mustang01 said:
If he doesn’t have an accountant and his earnings arent part of the application then really his tax clearance certificate should suffice. Could be just a box-ticking exercise by the credit team but I’d imagine your broker should be able to clarify it with them for you.
If you do want to try an alternative and have all docs ready to go, AIB’s online portal is good and they have a 10 day AIP response turnaround, so you could apply online yourself (without the broker I mean), just as a backup?
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The broker has been trying to explain for 6 weeks now so it seems they won't budge. I did apply to AIB in case and will progress that too. Thanks.
 
RedOnion said:
Although you're not including your husbands income as part of the application, I'm assuming the risk for a lender here is that your husband could have a huge tax liability that will affect your ability to repay in future. Or it could just the that they're following the same procedure as if your husbands income was included - it's pretty unusual that income for one applicant to be excluded from an application so maybe they don't have a 'standard procedure' for it.
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For 2020 and 2021 it's highly unlikely as they'll see from his returns he earned the PUP plus about 9k (allowed under the pup rules) and paid tax on both. No accounts prepared for 2022 yet.
 
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