On Saturday we went to see a house in the same development of the one we are renting. It is pretty much identical to the one we are in right now so we put an offer of full asking price. The agent told us that they have some good rates and asked us to talk to their mortgage advisor, and we did.

The house has many offers and they told us that they would wait till monday (today) 12pm to pick the highest bidder. at !pm they called me and asked me about my time scale and how much deposit I would put in. She said there were some similar offers so they wanted more information from me. At 5:30pm their mortgage advisor called me and said the mortgage he recommended (halifax) requires me to have >2.5 years of visa left (which I don't have). I told him that I would just go with HSBC as they don't have such requirement, and I probably won't have a problem getting a spousal visa anyway. He told me that he would talk to the agents and suggested me to call them tomorrow to tell them that HSBC does say that they don't care about my visa status, as there are other offers offering full asking price as well. I am worried that the owners of the house would pick another bidder because of this. If we didn't talk to their mortgage advisor this would not be a problem

How can I convince the agent that we would be able to get the mortgage?

如果你申请spouse visa，用你老公的名字申请mortgage不行吗？ 你目前的visa是比较难申请到贷款的，即使你现在有spouse visa也一样，拿到永居以后会好点。

oh really? Halifax said if I have spousal visa for >2.5 years left I will be considered. My husband has a company and his take-home salary is quite low, so only combined salary would work. however I guess if a bank considers his company profit as his income that would be enough. The problem is: most banks would not consider company bank accounts that have <2 years and the few do (like Halifax) have trouble with my work permit visa length

spouse visa is only 2 years. So I dont think you would be able to get a mortagage from halifax or hsbc at all. you may only try woolwich.

HSBC doesn't require remaining visa length, but paying income tax continuesly during the last 6 months

i am a bit confused. should one secure the morgage deal from the bank before bidding on the house?

well, we have mortgage in principal from HSBC and even from Halifax. It is just that the agent probably thinks we have some sort of problem as some banks won't consider us and told the venders about it. The house is stated under offer on their website and I received no phone calls from them today

oh just called the home office - guess I have to go through the residence card route and get the 5 year card. I am going back to the States for a month though so it would be another month delay. meanwhile I think only HSBC would work (I worked in the UK for a year already and have been paying tax). We might talk to woolwich too, but it seems that they have similar rates as HSBC anyway.