Pregnancy and applying for a mortgage

[Slumberparty]

I was wondering if anyone can tell me if I could be declined a mortgage on the basis of being pregnant. For the record, I am not pregnant at the moment but hope to be soon.
We have already seen a mortgage adviser a couple of weeks ago and were offered a mortgage in principle. Since then he has been given 3 months notice of redundancy which obviously puts our plans on hold and I assume nullifies our mortgage offer.
Once he is in a new job, if I was pregnant in 4 or 5 months time when we go back to see a mortgage adviser would this affect their decision? I work full time as does he. He owns a property already which he would sell and use about £50k for a deposit. I would be a first time buyer and have savings.
TIA

[apermanentheadache]

Not if you are pregnant. If you are on mat leave then yes, it may well affect things.

[financialwizard]

Actually being on maternity leave does not affect things if you are going back to work and your employer can confirm the hours you wi return on and how much your salary will be.

Most lenders will just go for an employment reference.

[apermanentheadache]

Ours took some convincing even with the letter...

[apermanentheadache]

Another thing to plan for is that lenders will take into account the cost of your childcare when working out affordability. Obviously that woukd only come into play once you have had a baby but worth bearing in mind.

[Slumberparty]

Excellent, thanks. So I guess they can not discriminate even though they know I will be going on maternity leave at some point. Are they allowed to ask how long I would plan to go off work for?

[FantasticMrsFoxx]

If they don't specifically ask the question, I wouldn't necessarily volunteer the information that you are pregnant. I'm now 13 weeks and aiming to borrow against our current mortgage to release funds for some major home improvements. We are confident we can afford the extra borrowing and maternity pay cut / childcare but if they don't ask, we're not going to mention it. Obviously if they do, we will and we'll take it from there.

[Finney2]

When I told my mortgage lender I was pregnant they told me we needed to find an extra £900 per month in order to meet the same affordability criteria that we would have been offered if I wasn't pregnant. I guess to cover the cos of childcare?

[Slumberparty]

Oh wow Finney. That's what I'm afraid of.

[apermanentheadache]

I don't know about accounting for childcare costs when you're pregnant, but yes, they would definitely do it when you are on mat leave. We had to provide letters and bills to demonstrate our childcare costs were due to drop like we said they were.

It might be worth considering if you can get a long-term (e.g., 5 year) fix so as you don't have to remortgage while still paying childcare (presuming you are going to be mortgaging on two salaries and not one). The affordability criteria now are tight and likely to remain that way for a while.

[JaneParker]

We had a nanny and I took 2 weeks holiday for each baby so when baby 2 came for exampel we had no loss of income and no extra child care. Same with baby 3 as nanny for the same wage simply had first 1 child to care for then, then 1 and 2 and then 1 - 3. So we would be able to show the difference.
Certainly my advice to young couples is get your mortgage application in before you are pregnant and as early as you can as your husband's child care costs and yours (it is not just women who pay nurseries and nannies of course - men pay half in fair equal marriages anyway) are relevant now.

[weatherall]

Don't tell them you are pregnant!