funky gadgets & finance

Self Certified - The Best Mortgage For Freelancers

Jul 18 2007

As a freelancer one of the most painful excercises I have undertaken in recent times has been taking out a mortgage. Well, painful up until the point where my research turned up self certification mortgages.

As a freelancer I must confess my focus is NOT on the record keeping. Basically, my attitude is that when I sit down at the computer I want to be making money. I do not enjoy in the slightest administration tasks and am very slack when it comes to keeping my records up to date. Add to that the fact that most of my work is done in small denominations.. and you have yourself a pretty fair sized nightmare when it comes to proving your income for a regular mortgage. Most banks require self employed people to have records that can be audited up to 5 years. An auditor would rather smoke rubber than try to make sense of my records.

So. What to do. Spend a whole bunch of time and money (if not direct cost from having to hire an accounting firm to bring the books up to scratch.. then the opportunity cost of lost productive time from doing it yourself). Or is there an alternative.

And the answer obviously, and thankfully, is yes. Get yourself into a self certification mortgage. The main difference between self cert mortgages and regular mortgages is that they are open to self employed people, and the applicant self certifies the income part of the application. I declare my own income level, and I am not required to prove it.

Which is perfect for freelancers like me with rubbish for records.

The other main difference is that the minimum deposit is usually 20%. For obvious reasons. (The risk is higher)

Spread the word Delicious, Digg, Reddit

Make Money On Your Blog: Text Link Ads, Pay Per Post