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Weird and wonderful mortgage deposits

Journalist: Anna Sagar, Mortgage Solutions / Specialist Lending Solutions

ended 04. January 2023

Looking to speak to mortgage brokers about the most interesting/weird sources of money for a mortgage deposit they have seen during their career. 

In The Times earlier today a detectorist used the money from a Roman coin horde as some of his deposit. 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/detectorist-uses-a-romans-deposit-for-his-mortgage-j3v7hw5rd?ts=1672738334376 

 

8 responses from the Newspage community

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Samuel Mather-Holgate
Independent Financial Adviser at Mather and Murray Financial
I've had two clients where gambling paid off. The first was a National Lottery winner who wanted to buy four buy-to-lets with some of the proceeds of his win. The second had put a £10 accumulator bet on six football matches and winning after five had played he contacted the betting company to see if they would let him cash out. He walked away with over £150,000 and that was his deposit on his first home.
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Benjamin Blyth
Director at Houz Mortgages
I wasn't the broker, but in a previous life as a lender, we had a client introduced to us whose father had bought a bottle of whisky as an investment for each of his son's birthdays. When of age, the young man sold off the collection and used the proceeds for a sizeable house deposit.
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Rhys Schofield
Brand Director at Peak Mortgages and Protection
One of the biggest headaches we ever had was for a client whose deposit had come from crowdfunding the development of a video game. He'd finished the project as planned but trying to convince a lender and a solicitor who thought this was still 1903 that the source of funds was legitimate gave me sleepless nights. We got there in the end but had to change both solicitor and lender.
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Anil Mistry
Director and Mortgage Broker at RNR Mortgage Solutions
I had a client who sold approximately £14,000 worth of Indian gold in order to fund his deposit. This was necessary as he did not have any cash available for the deposit. Fortunately, the lender accepted this as a form of deposit.
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Gary Boakes
Director at Verve Financial
We had a client send us a photo of their deposit in the wardrobe, because of their religion they didn't trust banks so as soon as they got paid they used to take it all out at cash points over the weeks.

Crypto has been an interesting one, one client grew £2500 to £30,000 in a year, lenders and solicitors not interested - was a difficult one to sort out.
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Paul Neal
Mortgages & Equity Release Advisor at First Choice Financial Services
More and more clients are coming to us wanting to use cryptocurrency, mind by the time they have sent proof they have usually lost 95% of their wealth...
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Austyn Johnson
Founder at Mortgages For Actors
The amount of times I've been asked about the possibility of a crypto deposit is actually quite surprising. Lenders don't really like them due to the volatility. The ones that do, expect this to have been cashed in before the offer.

We check deposit sources out thoroughly, so even the weird and wonderful can be used if valid.
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Matthew Jackson
Director at Mint FS
Back in 2005, I witnessed a purchaser who was asked to present proof of deposit, walk into a branch of a well-known estate agent with £75,000 in cash in a holdall - he was most confused when the manager could not accept this as proof of funds.

Now running my own firm of brokers I have to admit this seems quite normal compared to some of the sources we have queried - from Bitcoin mining to part-time online poker players and the now well-known Only Fans accounts - deposits can come from anywhere, and it is vital that the source is documented and checked and we confirm that the lender will accept these prior to submitting the application.