Keeping things simple...stupid

For today's episode, I am going to be talking about how when it comes to your banking, keeping things simple could be the key to a simple mortgage application.

This is rather a short episode and as this is still a rather new podcast I am still playing around with the length of each one and I would like to know if this shorter version is more suited to you or if you prefer the longer form ones.

The art of keeping things simple is a little mantra that gets used all the time for many different things. Simplicity is sought as a reaction to our over-complicated lives.

When we feel that we can’t control everything in our lives, it can be helpful to our psyche to control certain elements to restore order.

When it comes to mortgage applications it can be useful to apply a simplistic approach especially around your banking and proving income and proof of deposits.

Having a complicated banking arrangement can make a mortgage application slightly more complicated but please don't let that be a barrier if you put yourself into this camp.

Let's look at this all could mean for you more carefully.

If you are employed and you are applying for a residential purchase, for example, you will be expected to produce three months payslips, three months payslips which show your wages being credited into your bank. For the majority of the cases I deal with this is what I tend to see. One account which takes in your wages and the same account is then used to

If you are the person who is supplying the deposit for the purchase then you will also be expected to show the build-up of funds for your deposit which for most people means that you will be expected to produce another set of bank statements as the majority of people keep these funds in the account which is separate from their current account. Aside from all the other documents you will be expected to produce already for the three we have spoken about there - this is already a fair amount of paperwork to produce.

Simply for the purposes of supplying documents, your mortgage application can be made more complicated if you pay some of your money into account a to pay for x,y,z and if you have other income go into account b which pays for this and the other around your home. Now I am a big fan of having dedicated savings accounts for dedicated savings goals and if you and your household like to keep multiple accounts for multiple different reasons then just know that when you come to do your mortgage you may have to provide documents for each account that proves your income and shows your outgoings.

If you move your deposit money around from account to account and in the case of a recent application if you change where you hold your money frequently AND change the currency that it is held in then you may be faced with avoidable barriers to your application.