If you are self employed, a contractor, have irregular income, earn income from bonus or commission payments or have multiple jobs, you're one of many people in the UK who know they can afford a mortgage, but will likely encounter difficulty getting a standard mortgage. Fortunately specialist products are available designed to meet your needs.

In the last few years, there has been a proliferation of new mortgage products which have been developed to meet the needs of a wide range of borrowers, some of whom may have formerly been excluded from the mortgage market altogether because they could not fulfil conventional criteria for verifying their income.

Self certification – or self cert – mortgages allow borrowers to declare their own income, rather than providing documentary proof for the lender. There is no requirement to produce payslips or audited accounts to prove income. These types of loan are helpful to people in a variety of circumstances:

Many of those who are self employed find they cannot take out conventional mortgages because their income comes from a complex variety of sources or they have not been trading long enough to meet lenders’ requirements for proof of income.

Even those in paid employment may find self cert mortgages better suited to their needs in a variety of different circumstances, including if they have a low basic salary but high bonus payments or a regular second income that would not be taken into account with a more traditional mortgage.

Changing lifestyles have helped drive the growth of self certification mortgages. The number of people who are self employed has grown and, among those who are employed, working patterns have become more flexible, with more people on short-term contracts or earning incomes that vary significantly from one period to another. These changes have required a re think of traditional income criteria to allow a growing proportion of people continued access to home-ownership.

Self cert mortgages might be expected to be more expensive than loans where the lender obtains verification of income from an employer. But niche lenders have been able to narrow the price gap between traditional mortgage products and those for borrowers who do not meet traditional lending criteria. The result is that many self cert mortgages are attractively priced and there is a wide variety of choice of products to suit customers’ needs.

Is self cert the only option?
The self employed and freelancers are no longer regarded as pariahs by the financial services industry. As banks and building societies have built up more experience dealing with buyers who work for themselves, they have become more willing to lend to such individuals on standard terms. A good broker will always check first whether a lender will accept you on standard terms.
Flexible lending is often available, which allows borrowers to over- or under-pay their mortgage or even, in some cases, to take a payment holiday.

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