The mortgage market at the moment is extremely twitchy about what it would deem to be a sub prime case if you are in an IVA. It was after all sub prime borrowing which was the cataylst in the US for all the problems we are seeing here in the UK now. Over there, lenders were advancing ridiculous mortgage based on someone saying, for example, they earned $50,000 a year, when in reality they were flipping burgers in McDonalds. (no offence intended to any posters on this forum that does this by the way, but you get the drift). Interest rates in the US at that point were 1%, and house prices were rocketing in value, so US consumers were tempted by loads of equity available in their homes, which they could release at low rates with little, or in some case no proof of income. I read an article once that there was a californian company charging clients $50 a pop to give them a piece of paper confirming that individual as a "consultant" of that company, earning "x" amount of dollars per year which they they used to get a mortgage. However, it all went belly up when the (typically) 2 year fixed rates came to and end, and in the meantime interest rates in the US had gone up to in excess of 5%, so homeowners were faced with their mortgage payments increasing by 400%, when they couldnt afford the borrowing sometimes even when rates were at 1%! Loads of defaults followed, UK banks had exposure to these so called "liar loans" in the form of what are known as CDO's, where bundles of these rubbish loans are packaged together and sold off in chunks as investment vehicles.
So now, in the UK, sub prime lending, self certification lending etc is very very difficult to get unless you have a sizeable chunk of deposit to put down. The last mortgage I took out was self certed, and done on a 95% LTV basis. This was 4 years ago, and I doubt whether I would get that kind of deal now. As as been previously posted on this thread, you really need a deposit of 20-25% at the moment if you are deemed to be sub prime, and even prime lending at the 95% LTV level if very difficult to get on a decent interest rate. You may be better seeing if your existing lender will just move you onto one of their other deals when your fixed rate expires. With Lenders under pressure to pass on the 1.5% base rate cut to consumers, you may find that you can get another fixed rate deal with them that compares favourably with your current deal. Hope this helps, and good luck.
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