Mortgage Application with student loan in the UK

Butterface

Hi all,

My wife and I are applying for a mortgage through a broker and I need to provide a statement of my UK student loan.

It is not as straightforward as requesting an estatement via Online banking.

I rank the Student Loans Company and they advised that the annual statement is issued in June/July. They were unable to provide me with one showing payments, only an overall balance statement of the loan.

The payments are not by direct debit either, and I usually make a payment by debit card at varying dates around the beginning of the month (when I eventually remember!).

Last year I forgot to fill out the overseas assessment form and a few months passed by where I continued paying my income contingent amount, whereas they had defaulted my payment amount to a much higher amount. It was sorted and when I rang they said they can't see any arrears on my account.

Just wondering if any of the above will go against us in our application? The broker didn't know much about UK student loans, so wondering if this comes up much with Irish banks?

Thanks!

awec

Ring them and ask for an up-to-date statement. They are useless and don't really understand how their own system works.

You'll get a statement and it'll show the repayments on it as well as the overall balance. I had to request one three times while renewing mortgage applications, and every time the statement I got had repayments on it even though they told me it wouldn't. I think it's because overseas payments are processed differently to the UK payments.

I also had to get an experian credit report, because banks here don't understand UK student loans and don't know that a student loan will never show up on any credit report.

If you login to the site you should be able to retrieve a letter that states your current monthly amount and when it's valid for. You can also ask them to send you one of these too.

They will post you out your statement and it'll take ages to come, but it'll be available online like the next day if you don't want to wait on the official copy.

Butterface

Hi awec,

Thanks for the reply.

I logged in this morning and found the Ad hoc statement they are posting out as a pdf under my correspondence. This should suffice as it has goes back to April last year. I really did not expect them to understand what I wanted when I called them yesterday.. it took all my composure not to get antsy with the lady on the phone!!

The other thing I'm wondering about is that usually I pay off a bit more than my current monthly amount (usually round it up by £20/30 or so.. again depending on the month).

I can see my statement shows repayments with varying amounts and at different dates at the start of each month. Hopefully that will not cause an issue if I supply the letter with my expected monthly amount.

I will look into getting an Experian report - is this something that I can get if I haven't lived in the UK for over 5 years?

awec

Butterface wrote: »

Hi awec,

Thanks for the reply.

I logged in this morning and found the Ad hoc statement they are posting out as a pdf under my correspondence. This should suffice as it has goes back to April last year. I really did not expect them to understand what I wanted when I called them yesterday.. it took all my composure not to get antsy with the lady on the phone!!

The other thing I'm wondering about is that usually I pay off a bit more than my current monthly amount (usually round it up by £20/30 or so.. again depending on the month).

I can see my statement shows repayments with varying amounts and at different dates at the start of each month. Hopefully that will not cause an issue if I supply the letter with my expected monthly amount.

I will look into getting an Experian report - is this something that I can get if I haven't lived in the UK for over 5 years?

Yea I think you just use your name and last UK address with the Experian thing and they'll find you. I was gone for more than 5 years when I did mine.

Don't think overpaying will cause you any issues.

Butterface

awec wrote: »

Yea I think you just use your name and last UK address with the Experian thing and they'll find you. I was gone for more than 5 years when I did mine.

Don't think overpaying will cause you any issues.

Just an update on this re the Experian credit report request.. it's not so straightforward and I have been going around in circles with both Experian and Equifax.

A report can only be furnished if you have proof of address for either a bank/credit facility or utility bills, or driving licence...

The only proof of addresses I have is my tenancy agreements (for both addresses) and a few payslips (from first address) - neither of which they seem willing to accept. I never had bills in my name. I no longer have any bank statements from the UK address as I had updated it to my Irish address before leaving, so I just have closing statements for the Irish address.
I rang the UK bank to request historical bank statements, but they can only do so for the last address i.e. Irish address.

I have requested that can they at least put it in writing that they cannot provide a credit report so that I can provide that.

Anybody else have an issue getting a UK credit report when they had no bank accounts linked to their addresses over there?

Do the Irish banks accept anything else in lieu?

Thanks!

awec

That's weird, I never had to give anything like that to Experian.