Mortgages for the self-employed
Whether your clients are self-employed, contractors or freelancers; croupiers, builders, start-up entrepreneurs or dentists, our range of mortgages are designed to work for them.
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15% of the UK workforce is self-employed*.
Many might not apply for a mortgage for fear of rejection. Our mission is to change that.
*ONS Trends in self-employment in the UK – Feb 2018
Clearer criteria for those impacted by the pandemic
Based on your feedback, we've updated our self-employed criteria to allow for the various government support options that your clients’ may have used.
- We no longer need evidence of funds to support 3 months mortgage payments
- We can accept income evidence for the following Government support schemes:
- SEISS Grant/Business Support Grants
- Job Retention Scheme Payments
- Bounce Back Loan / Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan
- We can accept cases where the business has had employees on furlough, as long as this has not been within the last 3 months
Download our guide to see what we can accept as self-employed income evidence
Self-employed income guide
Lending criteria that's flexible
We’ll work off your client’s latest years accounts
We only require 1 year's trading history up to 85% LTV
Contractor income is calculated on current weekly contract x48 weeks
- Sole traders and partnerships: Latest year’s net profit (or share of) accepted
- Limited Company directors: Share of latest year’s net profit after tax or salary and dividends accepted
- No restriction on professions
- Same rates as for employed clients
- Debt Management Plans considered
View our residential lending policy
The Kensington Difference
- Manual underwriting - We use people to underwrite your client’s application rather than rely on machines.
- Flexible criteria - One size never fits all. That's why our lending criteria are designed to be flexible, meaning we can accommodate the inevitable ebbs and flows that can happen when your clients work for themselves
- Experience and expertise - It’s fair to say there's not much we don’t know about self-employed applicants. In 2020 alone, over a third of our completed mortgages were for applicants who were self-employed.
Watch our videos
From webinars to FAQs, find all our self-employed videos here.
Don't just take our word for it
Here’s what brokers say about Kensington