Halifax to accept non-sterling incomes and enhance shared ownership affordability

Halifax has announced two enhancements to its mortgage offering.

As a result of broker feedback, Halifax has introduced five non-sterling currencies into its acceptable income types: US Dollar, Euro, Australian Dollar, Indian Rupee, and Swiss Franc.

Acceptable income types for purchase and remortgage applications include basic salary, bonuses, overtime and commission.

Halifax will convert the income amount to GBP and apply a haircut of 20% (10% for bonus income) to cover any potential currency fluctuations.

In addition, the lender has announced improvements to its shared ownership affordability assessment.

The bank is improving its affordability decision at DIP and full application, by using the actual rental payment rather than an assumed value in its affordability calculations for shared ownership.

Halifax says the change will improve and simplify the processing of shared ownership applications and give borrowers more certainty of the loan amount available at the point of application.