First Time Buyer Joint Mortgage

Podcastapproved by The Openwork Partnership on 12/03/2025.

How do joint mortgages work for First Time Buyers?

In general, it doesn’t matter too much whether you’re a First Time Buyer in the eyes of the mortgage lender. The only difference may be that some lenders might have a specific product for First Time Buyers – but the process itself is generally the same, irrespective of whether it’s your first time or your second, third or fourth.

A lender will look at your income, your pay slips – or SA302s if you’re self-employed – alongside any outgoings to work out your affordability. The underwriting process then verifies all that information and, hopefully, you get a nice mortgage offer.

My partner is a First Time Buyer, but I’m not. What are my options?

Lenders will treat you pretty much the same in terms of borrowing capacity and deposit, whether you’re First Time Buyers or not. There may be a few products available for First Time Buyers that you may not qualify for, but it doesn’t necessarily impact you in terms of how much you can borrow.

In fact, sometimes being a non-First Time Buyer with a First Time Buyer can be an advantage. You’ve potentially got a more credit history behind you and a track record of mortgage payments – so it doesn’t limit you.

Do both buyers have to be First Time Buyers? Do couples lose First Time Buyer status if one partner has bought in the past?

You don’t both have to be First Time Buyers. You would lose First Time Buyer status if you had bought previously, but as we mentioned, there isn’t really a significant difference.

There might be a few First Time Buyer products, but they’re not necessarily any better than what you could get having owned in the past. It might just be a different product code or maybe there is slightly more cashback.

Generally it’s not going to make any significant difference to the products, the amount you could borrow or the lenders you’ll have access to.

Do I have to pay stamp duty if my partner is a First Time Buyer, but I’m not?

Unfortunately, anyone who is a previous homeowner, or who owns a property at the moment will always trump the First Time Buyer. The government wants to make as much money as possible out of people.

A First Time Buyer has access to a stamp duty allowance, but if they are buying with someone who is not a First Time Buyer that stamp duty allowance will be lost. You will be governed by the stamp duty threshold for that person. So yes, as a First Time Buyer, you could potentially lose that benefit.

But there are still allowances for home movers. If you have owned property in the past, the allowances are not as good as for First Time Buyers, but you may still be able to minimise the stamp duty land tax payment as much as possible.

What does being joint tenants or tenants in common mean?

When you purchase a property jointly, you have two options in terms of what is registered on the Land Registry documents around ownership.

Joint tenants means that you both own the property equally – and it’s not 50% each. You both own 100% of the property each. It sounds counterintuitive, because that’s not technically possible. But it means that if one of you were to pass away, the whole property would naturally become owned by the other person, because you both own all of it jointly.

As tenants in common, you can specify how much ownership percentage each person has. You might do 50-50 or 70-30, for example. Tenants in common is often more popular with non-married couples, or First Time Buyers buying together.

Maybe a parent has gifted a deposit to one of the applicants while the other person doesn’t have as much to put in. Often people will allocate percentages of ownership in line with how much they contribute to the initial deposit of the property.

Ultimately there’s no right answer in terms of which one you go for. In the long run, hopefully it won’t really make any difference. But doing tenants in common and specifying percentages is a way to protect your initial investment – especially for couples that aren’t 100% committed to each other yet.

Can I get a mortgage with a guarantor?

That’s become quite popular in recent years, with house prices rising and salaries not increasing as much. Lenders have stretched the affordability, but a property you want might still be slightly out of your reach.

In days of old, a guarantor would say to the bank that they would make the payments if the original applicant is unable to. The word guarantor isn’t used as much nowadays. This type of mortgage has changed to Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor, but it works on the same basis.

Basically, you could get someone to come in with you on the mortgage, but they are not named on the property. It means there are no stamp duty issues because they already own a home. It’s also a way to utilise their income and stretch a little higher to buy a property, with the reassurance of a guarantor to fall back on and make affordability happen.

How much can I borrow as a First Time Buyer with a joint mortgage? How much deposit do I need?

These are probably the two most popular questions asked by people buying property, but unfortunately there’s no generic answer. Lenders treat everyone individually and there is a set remit of criteria that you have to meet, but they look at everyone’s cases individually.

They’ll look at your income, your partner’s income and the same with outgoings. Any debts like credit card balances, loans, student loans, childcare costs or maintenance payments, will be factored in for both of you. It will come out with a specific figure, because each lender has their own calculator.

Generally speaking, the fewer outgoings you have, the more consistent the results will be from one lender to the other. It’s when you start adding in debts, children, childcare, overtime and bonuses that we start to see lenders differentiating in how much they’ll lend.

As a starting point, most lenders tend to come in at around four and a half times your joint combined annual income, pre-tax. With other variables, it could potentially be lower than that. For high income earners, you could potentially even up to five and a half times income.

In terms of deposit, generally speaking, 5% is the minimum, but for very expensive properties of £500,000 plus, sometimes minimum deposits might exceed that – at 10% potentially with some lenders. But 5% is mainly the minimum, and that applies irrespective of whether you’re a First Time Buyer or not.

What is a Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor mortgage?

We covered this earlier, but we can add a bit more detail. A Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor mortgage can be badged in different ways. Some lenders call them income boosters. You might even see the word guarantor, as I mentioned earlier.

With Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor, you bring another party in to make sure you can afford the mortgage. It can help you get that property, but there are certain things to be aware of.

Most lenders always base it on the oldest person. So while it can get you a little bit more borrowing, people tend to have a parent joining them on the mortgage, and because they are older the term of the mortgage may be shortened.

If you’re borrowing over a shorter term, your payments could be a lot higher. And as much as parents and grandparents want to help their children get onto the property ladder, that can be a downside to the Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor.

Maybe you’ve got to work to your budget rather than just borrowing more than you can personally afford. Then, you avoid putting too much stress on your monthly commitments.

Can you transfer a joint mortgage to one person?

If you’ve got a mortgage with someone, you both own the property. Perhaps you’re in a fixed deal and something happens. One of you wants to take over the property on your own and keep the mortgage.

You’d have to specifically go to your lender and request this. It’s not something that will be automatically approved, because generally speaking, most people buying together will have bought a more expensive property with a higher mortgage than they could afford on their own.

A lender might be lenient because you’ve been making the payments, especially if the person looking to take the mortgage over is the one that’s been paying the bills. But for affordability reasons, they might not allow you to take that mortgage over on your own.

The end of your fixed rate is often the point where you want to move from two people on a mortgage to one. That would be completely fine, subject to affordability, because you could remortgage with a new lender and just apply as one person rather than two.

You would also do a Transfer of Equity with a solicitor as part of the legal process, where the person who’s no longer going to be on the property is then removed from the deeds.

How do you calculate a First Time Buyer joint mortgage?

Each lender is slightly different, so it’s not as simple as multiplying your joint income by four or five or whatever. It’s still based on affordability, just as for any purchase.

But if you look at 4.5 to five times your joint income, that gives you a very rough idea. Some that will go to 4.49, some will even reach 5.5 – so somewhere between 4.5 to 5% is a helpful rule of thumb.

If you’ve got a joint mortgage, you’ve probably both got commitments – they’ll be added into the affordability. I’ve seen situations where five times income goes through without a problem. But I’ve also seen situations where two times income has been declined because there are many debts on credit cards, hire purchase and car finance… the applicants can’t afford all that as well as the mortgage.

Can I get a First Time Buyer joint mortgage if I have bad credit?

Yes, is the short answer, but it’s potentially unlikely to be with a bank you have heard of. Banks like NatWest, Nationwide, HSBC or Barclays tend to want people with clean credit. That means very few missed or late payments, no county court judgments, defaults or bankruptcies.

But there are lenders in an adverse credit space in the market which charge higher rates or higher fees. Ultimately, the clients they advertise to are higher risk. The severity of the bad credit would determine which lenders you have access to.

Generally speaking, the odd missed payment is hopefully not going to cause any significant issues. But defaults, especially ones over four figures, can be a challenge. Also, more recent bad credit is disadvantageous – it shows you’re currently not in a great position. If it was five or six years ago, towards the far end of your credit record, that’s hopefully less of a problem.

Finally, the cause is a factor as well. If it was down to being generally irresponsible with money, that’s less appealing to a lender than debts caused by a family breakup where you miss a bill because you cancel a direct debit or close a bank account.

Lenders in the bad credit space are more flexible in terms of their criteria than bigger banks, so they can take a case by case approach and use more reasoning and logic to make their decisions. Bigger banks obviously deal with so many mortgages that they will have strict criteria. If you don’t meet it, unfortunately, that’s it.

How can a mortgage broker help me get a joint mortgage as a First Time Buyer?

The key thing here is the broker’s knowledge. Our job is to make sure that you get the mortgage most suitable for your needs.

We’ll go to the lenders that will say yes. The search engines online are very good at telling you that Halifax has got a two year fixed rate or Nationwide has a five year fixed rate, but they don’t tell you the lending criteria behind it or how much that bank will lend you.

If you’ve had a bit of bad credit, they won’t tell you if you will be accepted until you apply – once you’ve done all the hard work and spent time and effort in getting things sorted. But a mortgage broker can assess someone’s situation. You’re a First Time Buyer looking for a joint mortgage – based on your situation we’ll know the most suitable lender for you.

We’ll explain the rationale behind that and the borrowing capacity you need for the property. It’s about using our expertise and experience to identify the most suitable lender for you, both now and on an ongoing basis, throughout our relationship with you.

YOUR PROPERTY MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE.

Approved by The Openwork Partnership on 12/03/2025.