A lender turns your mortgage down, and the natural reaction is to take it personally. Don’t. Lenders all work to different rules, so a case that breaks one at lender number one can pass at lender number four. Brokers call these difficult-to-place cases, and they fill a good part of a broker’s week.
Most of the work is finding the right door. The rest is making sure the underwriter finds what they need on the page and has nothing to chase.
Why Some Mortgages Are Hard to Place
Rulebooks differ more than most people expect. One lender wants two years of accounts, another takes one. One won’t touch a default under three years old, another looks at the amount and moves on. So a good earner with a decent deposit can still hit a wall over one small thing.
The usual culprits are a patchy credit file, a small deposit, pay that isn’t a plain salary, a property the lender dislikes, or a landlord case that is bigger or messier than the standard product allows. Often two or three stack up. Picture a self-employed buyer with a thin deposit and a leasehold flat. Any one of those is manageable. Put all three together and few lenders are left.
Big lenders add another layer. Their systems score applications automatically, so a computer says no before a person reads a word. It does that for a debt you cleared last year as readily as for one you are still paying.
One Decline Does Not Close the Market
A refusal tells you nothing about the next lender. What it does leave is a search on your credit file. Do that four times in a month and the file looks like someone shopping around in a panic.
That is why we ask questions before we apply anywhere. We read your circumstances against a lender’s criteria, and we submit only when we expect a yes. For the mechanics of the searches, read what a mortgage application does to your credit report. For the common reasons applications fail, why mortgages get declined covers them. And if you were turned down late in the process, see when mortgage deals fall through after an agreement in principle.
Adverse Credit
Missed payments, defaults, CCJs, a debt management plan: none of these shuts every door, but each one shrinks the choice. Specialist lenders weigh the same few things: how recent the problem was, how big, whether it has been cleared, and what your credit has looked like since. A default six years old reads very differently from one six months old.
We look at your file the way a lender will, then match it to lenders whose limits it fits. A short plain note goes in with the application explaining what happened. Expect to pay a higher rate and put down more than someone with a clean file.
Bad credit mortgages goes into more detail, and how your credit score affects your mortgage application shows what lenders actually read.
Low Deposit and High Loan to Value
Once you borrow 90% or 95% of the price, the lender list thins out. The ones left price with care and check everything else harder, so a messy application gets noticed.
Gifted deposits need a letter from the giver and proof of where the money came from. If family wants to do more, there are two routes. A guarantor puts their own property or savings behind your loan. A joint borrower sole proprietor mortgage puts a relative on the loan but not on the deeds. Both carry real risk for the relative, so they need a proper conversation first. Read 5% deposit mortgages for first-time buyers, guarantor mortgages and joint borrower sole proprietor mortgages before you decide.
Complex Income
Many lenders are built around the person with a monthly payslip. Self-employed accounts, contractor day rates, two part-time jobs, bonus-heavy pay, rent on top of a salary: all of these make a standard calculator struggle. And no two lenders treat them alike.
Picture a company director who pays herself £30,000 and leaves another £40,000 of profit in the business. One lender looks at the salary and stops there. Another adds her share of the profit. Same person, same year, two very different incomes on paper. Contractors see the same spread. One lender takes the day rate and multiplies it across a working year, another wants proof of a long contract history first.
The paperwork is usually an SA302 or tax year overview, accounts, contracts and bank statements, and how lenders check income lists what underwriters tend to ask for. We pick the lender whose approach favours your pattern of earnings. For your type of income, try complex income mortgages, self-employed mortgages, contractor mortgages or how self-employed borrowers use retained profits and directors’ loans.
One lender saying no is not the end of the road
Buy-to-Let Cases That Are Hard to Place
Landlord applications fail in their own ways. The rent doesn’t cover the lender’s stress test. The purchase is through a limited company. A portfolio has grown past what a lender will consider. The property is an HMO, or a flat above a shop. The energy rating is poor.
Specialist buy-to-let lenders cope with most of that, but you mostly reach them through a broker, which is the point of broker-only mortgage rates. Each lender sets its own limits on rental cover, portfolio size and property type, and you can’t guess them from the outside. Let-to-buy cases suit a narrower group again.
Start with buy-to-let mortgages, limited company buy-to-let mortgages, how to get a buy-to-let mortgage with a low deposit and let to buy mortgages. For energy-rating rules, EPC requirements and buy-to-let lending criteria covers the effect on lending.
When the Property Is the Problem
Sometimes the building is the issue, not you. A short lease, a high ground rent, a former council flat, non-standard construction, a new build with a retention held back, an unusual use: any of these cuts the list of lenders. Leasehold mortgage issues, new build mortgage retentions and how property type affects mortgage rates explain the common ones. Knowing which lenders take which kind of property can save weeks.
How We Build the Case
A lot of the value is in the groundwork. We ask for documents up front, not one at a time as a lender chases. We check the numbers against the lender’s rules before anything goes in. We also write a few lines on the odd bits: a gap between contracts, a bad year for profit, a one-off payment into the account. Underwriters work through a queue, so a complete file that explains itself moves faster than one that bounces back with questions.
Our documents checklist and the step-by-step mortgage application process show what’s involved. How long it takes is down to the lender’s queue and how quickly you can supply papers, so we give you a realistic estimate once we know which lender we are applying to.
What a Broker Can’t Do
Nobody can promise an approval. If someone does, walk away. A broker can’t bend a lender’s rules, rewrite your credit history or make an unaffordable loan affordable.
What we can do is narrow the field to lenders your case suits, present it cleanly, and be straight with you if the answer is not yet. Often there is a fix: wait for a default to age, build a bigger deposit, change how income is shown. Our case studies show the sort of cases we’ve placed.
We work with clients across the UK, with local pages for Manchester, Sheffield and London.
Talk to Us About Your Case
If a lender has already turned you down, or you expect one to, tell us what happened. We’ll say which lenders are worth approaching and what they’ll want to see. The first conversation is free.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a difficult-to-place mortgage?
It’s an application that suits some lenders’ rules and breaks others.
The cause is usually credit history, a small deposit, complicated income or an awkward property. It doesn’t mean you can’t borrow. It means the choice of lender counts for more here than on a plain case.
Can I get a mortgage with bad credit?
Often, yes, though fewer lenders will look at you and you’ll pay more.
Specialist lenders ask when the problem happened, how large it was, whether it’s settled, and what your credit history has looked like since. Two people with a default on file can get very different answers.
Which income is hardest to get a mortgage on?
Anything that isn’t a plain monthly salary.
That covers self-employed profit, contractor day rates, a handful of part-time jobs, commission and rent. Every lender counts these its own way, so the lender you pick changes what your income is worth.
Does applying to several lenders hurt my credit file?
It can.
A full application normally leaves a search on your file, and a cluster of them looks like trouble to the next lender. Some lenders run only a soft search at the agreement in principle stage, and some don’t. We check each lender’s policy before we apply anywhere.
How long does a difficult mortgage take through a broker?
Nobody can give you a fixed number of days.
The lender’s queue and how quickly you send documents drive most of it. Complex cases usually run longer than standard ones, and gathering the paperwork on day one saves the most time.
Do brokers charge more for difficult cases?
Not by default, though it varies by broker and the work involved.
With us the first conversation is free, and if a fee applies you’ll have the amount in writing before you commit.
Can a broker place a buy-to-let that a high street lender declined?
Often.
Specialist landlord lenders take limited company purchases, bigger portfolios and unusual properties that high street lenders refuse, and many only work with brokers. The rental cover, deposit and property type still have to fit that lender’s limits.
Final Thoughts
A decline is one lender’s answer, not the market’s. If you want to know where your case fits, tell us the details and we will give you a straight view before anything is submitted.
UK Mortgage Broker is a whole-of-market broker helping clients throughout the UK and globally to secure funding on UK property. We are directly authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
Call: +44 1628 969 500 Email: info@uk-mortgagebroker.co.uk
Related Pages
- How Much Can I Borrow on a UK Mortgage? – The income multiples lenders use.
- Why Going Direct to Your Bank Can Limit Your Mortgage Options – Why one lender can limit your options.
- First-Time Buyer Mortgages UK: How They Work and What You Can Borrow – Help for people buying their first home.
- How Mortgage Brokers Manage Complex Chains with Lenders, Surveyors, and Conveyancers – How a broker keeps a purchase on track when others in the chain are slow.
- Remortgage UK – Options when your current deal ends.