Many thanks for your help.

I have had a little look into shared ownership through housing associations and a few have come back and said they also won't accept pets similar to privately rented accommodation. I don't think my Mum would be able to help as she is on her own, my boyfriend's parents are selling their house and offered to help us out with some more deposit money if they manage to sell it, but I don't think they would be willing to do this if I was getting the mortgage in my name which is understandable. It's just so tricky as I'm working in London my train fare is £4,700 from where I live now which is obviously a significant monthly cost of nearly £400. Whilst properties are pretty cheap where I live and I could probably afford a flat there, I wanted to move closer to London to reduce my monthly cost of travel, but obviously property prices are a lot more expensive.

I think the best bet is to go and re-visit the mortgage advisor as he was really helpful last time.

Many thanks for your help!

You really need to go and speak to a mortgage broker about this. Every bank will decline you immediately as your BF will need at least 2 years trading accounts to be acceptable under their criteria.

There are certain companies out there that will look at cases like these and if the credit and income is strong enough then they will consider an application based on past earnings and current income....but you will need to have a very strong credit profile for this and these lenders are not readily available through on the high street and as far as I know only available through mortgage brokers. It may not hurt to ask a local building xcosiety if they can help, they often do a personal underwite on applicants and so this sometimes can remove the need for 2 years books if you can tick all other boxes for them

It may also be worth calling any hopusing associations in your area to see if they can offer any housing schemes to help you, they may have something or even a pilot scheme that you could try (there seem to be plenty starting up). Otyher than this you may just have to settle for a smaller house based on your opwn income or even potentially ask your parents if they could help you or act as guarantor

Hi everyone, hope someone can help us!

Me and my boyfriend are first time buyers and went to see a mortgage advisor back in October. We were really pleased to find out he thought it shouldn't be a problem for us to get a mortgage for a property up to the value of £150,000 as we have around £15,000 deposit. We started to look for properties in the area we wanted, but unfortunately my boyfriend was made redundant in November. He now has another job on great money but the problem is he is self-employed, and has found it a real struggle to find any company taking people on PAYE at the moment, therefore we're going to struggle to get a mortgage. I have been in my job for nearly 2 years and earn £18,500 but hope to get promoted soon. We really need to find a way of getting some kind of mortgage, we have saved for so long it would be devastating to have to rent somewhere and all the saving for nothing. Plus, we have a dog and have really struggled to find anywhere that will accept us because of this! I have checked out shared equity and shared ownership schemes to see if I could get a small mortgage on my own so we would at least own a percentage of a property, but this seems to be only for new builds and mostly flats, and we really need a garden for the dog and there don't seem to be any suitable in the area we're looking (North London as I work in Central London).

Can anyone help on this or been in a similar situation?!

Many thanks