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Hi everyone, I am a non-resident and a non-citizen looking on to investing on a property in UK. So I was wondering that if I pay cash 100% and I remortgage the property, there's a 6 months cooling period right? 1. So I would like to know if it is true that you cannot use the money from remortgaging and cannot be taken as cash? 2. In this case you can only use the money in investing to another property? Does that mean if I pay 100% in cash then remortgage a property, I'll have the 75% back which then has to be used to invest on 3 different properties given that 25% equity is required? 3. Is there a workaround with me having the cash from remortgaging so I can invest the money somewhere else? Would really appreciate your inputs and suggestion on this one. Thank you so much!

Hello, I'm looking for some recommendations of mortgage brokers that specialise in mortgages for expats or at least are highly knowledgeable about them. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks, MD

Hi All, Does anyone have experience with expat mortgages? I am aware of Expat Liquid. I am based overseas in Switzerland and looking to buy property in the UK for investment purposes. Many thanks, John

My wife and I have just completed a remortgage on two of our buy to let properties in the UK, and I wanted to share the experience with the forum, partly from an informational perspective and partly because I'm appalled at how inefficient the process was! Here's a breakdown of our experience. Timeframe From first contact, to having our remortgages completed with released equity in our account, the process took 5 months. There was a period of around 2-3 weeks in that where we were a bit idle, but the rest of the time we actively worked to provide all information required to complete the process as quickly as possible. Documentation By far the worst part was the documentation requirements, which are quite strict when taking out a new mortgage when abroad. This was made worse because I am not a British citizen like my wife, so the documentation requirements were different for us. The most frustrating part though is the lack of awareness by the banks of the digital age we are in, and still insisting on paper copies of everything when all I was doing was accessing invoices/bank statements etc online and printing them out myself. It would have been a much quicker process if banks accepted digital copies of documentation. For example, I just setup an account with Transferwise to move money internationally, and their ID verifications where all digital, you could even use your webcam to take a snapshot of your passport while on their website if you wanted (great service and rates from them by the way, from setting up my account to having my money it took 2 days!). Products Since we don't hold a HSBC premier account we did not have them as an option for our mortgages, and we went the broker route. Based on this forum I get the impression that most foreigners use HSBC for their mortgages though. The broker we used was Capital Fortune, which I found through another member of this forum. They have a fairly professional setup so I cannot fault them as a broker, and overall their services were pretty good. Being a foreigner/expat couple, the access to mortgage products in the market at the moment is fairly slim. This obviously affects the rates available, and we were quoted Marsden Building Society products that offered rates between 3,69% and 4,9%, with 65% to 75% LTV. Fees and fees, and more fees. The broker takes a fee, as does the bank/building society we went with. All in all the mortgages cost us about £4,000 per property, not exactly cheap! The alternative of staying on standard variable rates for 2 more years though would be much worse, hence the benefit still outweighs the cost even when taking out just a 2-year variable rate mortgage. I've probably missed out loads, but if anyone has any questions and wants advice particularly if they're in the same situation then please ask questions! Now...off to put this free equity to work and secure our 4th investment property, in Norway this time where the process is MUCH smoother