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Mortgages and relationship breakdowns

ended 17. July 2026

Do you think the mortgage market has evolved sufficiently to support people rebuilding after a relationship breakdown? After all, there's a lot of noise about helping FTBs onto the property ladder, but one broker says she is increasingly seeing another group struggling to access mortgages – people whose relationships have broken down.

These are often borrowers who have successfully owned a home for years, maintained their mortgage payments and have stable employment. Yet, after separating, they find themselves having to start again in a housing market where affordability has become a major barrier.

Many don’t walk away with the large deposits people assume, particularly once equity has been divided and legal costs have been paid. In many ways, they’re treated like first-time buyers, but without the support, schemes or product innovation available to that market.

  • Could the mortgage industry do more to recognise this growing group of borrowers?
  • Could there be greater flexibility in underwriting, or even mortgage products specifically designed to help people rebuild their lives after separation while maintaining robust affordability standards?
  • What else could be offered?

Also, any anonymised case studies of clients you have had in this situation, email them to editors@newspage.media if you run out of space.

7 responses from the Newspage community

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Tracey Dixon
Buy-to-Let Mortgage Specialist & Owner at Pure Mortgage and Protection
We’re rightly focused on helping first-time buyers, but what about homeowners forced to start again after a relationship breakdown?

As a mortgage broker, I’m seeing more clients with good incomes and excellent payment histories who simply can’t meet today’s affordability rules. Once the family home is sold, equity divided and costs paid, many don’t have the deposit people assume.

I’ve experienced this myself. Following the breakdown of my own relationship, I found that despite working as a mortgage broker and understanding the system inside out, I still had to take on a second job simply to improve my affordability and give myself the chance of owning a home again. If it can happen to someone who works in the industry, it can happen to anyone.

This isn’t about asking lenders to relax responsible lending. It’s about recognising that life happens. I’d love to see the industry explore products or underwriting that better supports people rebuilding after separation.
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Jamie Elvin
Director at Strive Mortgages
The mortgage industry has invested huge amounts of time and innovation into helping first-time buyers, yet one of the fastest-growing groups needing support is largely overlooked—people rebuilding after separation. These aren’t higher-risk borrowers; they’re often proven homeowners with strong payment histories. The current approach can leave parents unable to secure suitable housing, with children ultimately bearing the biggest impact. It’s time lenders developed products and underwriting that reflect modern family life, rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach to one of life’s biggest financial challenges.
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Nouran Moustafa
Practice Principal & IFA at Roxton Wealth
The mortgage market still treats separation as a change in relationship status rather than the financial reset it often is. These borrowers may have years of perfect mortgage conduct and stable earnings, yet once equity is split, legal costs are paid and one income replaces two, they can be pushed back to square one without any of the support aimed at first-time buyers.

Lenders should not weaken affordability rules, but they could assess this group more intelligently. That means giving greater weight to proven payment history, using manual underwriting where circumstances are temporarily distorted, accepting realistic maintenance income, and offering products with lower deposits, reduced fees or flexible initial payments.

A relationship breakdown should not erase a borrower’s track record. The industry has built innovation around getting people onto the ladder; it now needs to recognise those trying to stay on it.
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Stephen Perkins
Managing Director at Yellow Brick Mortgages
Relationship breakdown can leave borrowers feeling like first-time buyers all over again. Many have years of successful home-ownership behind them, yet after dividing equity and paying legal costs they're trying to buy again with a much smaller deposit in a far tougher market.

The answer isn't simply lending more, but continuing to innovate in ways that help people rebuild while maintaining responsible lending standards.
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Richard Davidson
Mortgage Advisor at onlinemortgageadvisor.co.uk
The borrowers we see most are couples where one earned well and the other earned little or nothing. When they split, the one moving on is usually still tied to the old mortgage, so a new lender counts that whole payment against them and their affordability falls off a cliff, even though their own income has not changed.
On the other side is the person left in the house, trying to keep it going alone and take their ex off the loan, and often unable to prove they can carry it by themselves on paper. There is almost no help for either of them, even when they can show exactly what they earn. Lenders could make a real difference by judging these cases on the person actually in front of them, rather than treating a recent separation as a red flag.
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Ross Lacey
Director & Independent Financial Adviser at Fairview Financial Management
Irrespective of the circumstances, lenders and brokers have an obligation to make sure mortgages remain affordable. When relationships break down, what might have been affordable under two incomes may no longer work on just one.

Our experience of working with clients going through divorce is that these conversations and calculations are done before any settlement is agreed to, so every party knows what will happen and how things will work post divorce.

For those separating without any legal involvement, it pays to consider properly what your situation may look like after separation to ensure anything agreed to is done with as much insight as possible.
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Platinum
Elliott Culley
Director at Switch Mortgage Finance
Separated individuals and first time buyers have more in common with one another that you might expect. It is extremely difficult to buy a property on your own with the main barrier to entry being affordability. As a previous owner of a property coming out of a relationship , it can be extremely difficult to afford a mortgage on just one income , whereas there's more targeted support for first-time buyers. Mortgage lenders could offer higher multiples of borrowing for these individuals in the same way that they are offered to first-time buyers, especially as you could argue the risk is lower. If they have been a homeowner before and never missed a mortgage payment. Trying to restart your life after a breakup can be extreme difficult and more support should assist with this process.