Alfa1M:
So, I am going to be applying for a mortgage in the next few months which got me thinking.
when I meet the bank man and he wants to see my yearly salary, as the nature of this job is unpredictable would you show what your guaranteed to earn (guaranteed 50 hrs p.w) or what your actual end of year shows after overtime, bonuses, allowances, night out money. Because the difference between my guaranteed salary and what I’ve actually earned past 2 years is 3,000, now obviously not all that extra is in my pocket due to night out expenses.
But the bank man could probably turn round and say what if the overtime and bonuses, nights out stopped?
I know there’s always a debate on whether night out allowance should count towards your earnings and I say each to their own opinion, but in terms of your finances and applying for credit where do we stand with this one?
Lenders didn’t used to take “overtime” into account, but they WILL count “regular allowances” on the payslips presented.
I used to have a low basic, but put in a lot of overtime that came up on the payslip as “Scheduled Attendence”. When the bank asked what this was, I suggested it was an increase beyond my contracted weekly hours RATHER than admitting it was just “contract overtime”. As a result, this SA was taken into account when calculating the amount I could borrow, and I duly got my mortgage. I’ve never had any trouble meeting my mortgage payments since, so I hardly “Over-stretched myself”. Lenders DO seem to be impressed by this Trucker’s thing where 55-60 hour weeks are commonplace. I’m pretty sure that since the crackdown in lending criteria - I’d NOT be able to switch to another mortgage if I wished to do so TODAY, because I’ve spent 7 of the last 10 years on agency.
The trick is “Make sure you get the correct mortgage in the FIRST place that one doesn’t have to change”.
It was worth signing upto what was then an SVR - just to get my foot on the door as a first time buyer back in the day, but soon after that - I switched to a lifetime tracker, and never looked back.
My lender asked me “What would you do if you were made redundant one day?” to which I replied “The only way I’m going to be made redundant, is if the slump is so bad, that interest rates collapse trying to dig us out of that slump”. 4 years later, that judgement paid off when interest rates duly collapsed - with me now on a BoE (rather than SVR) rate tracker - so they cannot fiddle it.
People at Stockton Building Society - got ripped off the worst, because they make up any rate they like that their mortgagees have to fork out for… The Bank of England rate however - has been pretty quiet for over a decade now. Always opt in to the deal that the system doesn’t want you to opt-into. ALL financial products signed up to - require the “buyer” to TAKE A VIEW ON THE MARKET.
If you don’t know how to bet then - you ain’t gonna know how to “win” - are you? 
It is a political process.
