Foreign Nationals

It is possible for foreign nationals to obtain a mortgage in the UK without necessarily being a citizen. It does vary between different lenders, but generally there are minimum requirements in relation to your VISA status and the length of time you have lived in the UK in order to qualify for a mortgage.

Most lenders require a minimum of 12 months UK address history to consider any foreign national applicants, with the majority wanting at least 2 years, while some need as much as 5 years address history.

Your VISA status is also a very important factor when determining if you’ll be accepted or not. Not all VISAs are acceptable, for example, a student VISA would likely be rejected as it implies that you will only be in the country for a short period of time. Each lender has different criteria on the level of VISA that they will accept, but the majority will consider clients with indefinite leave to remain. If you have a working or spousal VISA, this is also generally acceptable as long as there is sufficient time remaining until it expires, most lenders would want to see a minimum of 2 years remaining, however if there is less time than that remaining, you should still be accepted so long as you can provide evidence that this is due to be renewed.