Hello, I wonder if anyone can help.

I am looking to buy a house with my soon-to-be wife who already has a property (mortgage of £60k, value of £220k). As we do not have any deposit we plan to extend the mortgage on the original property (which is occupied by her parents) and use this as a deposit. With joint income of around £75k (pre-tax) and credit card debt of around £15k together, what kind of mortgage amount would we be able to borrow and would a bank allow us to use an extended mortgage as a deposit?

Any comments greatly welcome.

Remortgaging the existing house will be OK as a deposit for a new place. The best deals are for 60% equity so you could remortgage the existing house for another £28,000 (to give equity of £132,000) which would give you a deposit for the new place. However, you will be limited by the income multiple you can borrow which will have to cover both mortgages and you will be further limited by your credit card debt. Without CC debt you should be able to borrow a total of about £240k (you may get more but 3.25 is about the most that is sensible) so you are probably looking a new house of approx £180k or less to allow for the credit cards.

With that much income you'd be better getting the credit card debt down first. Could you both move in with her parents for a year which should easily sort you both out if you're very frugal ?

Thanks for your input.

We have thought about moving in with her parents (again) but none of us really want that (especially after we've got married). We are paying off our CC debt pretty quickly already so that's not a major concern other than it restricting what we can borrow now. We are already paying £1400 per month mortgage and rent so I don't think increasing the current and getting a new mortgage will affect the overall monthly payments too much if we get the right equity mix in both houses, that's the struggle! That and getting the 2nd mortgage.