• Buying in: Les Gets, French Alps
• Property price: €570,000
• Loan Amount: €484,500
• Mortgage Type: Repayment
• Mortgage Term: 25 years
• Interest Rate: 2.35% fixed
• Loan-to-value: 85%

The background:

Our clients, a couple of British residents, part employees and part self-employed, were looking for an existing property in Les Gets, French Alps. Their wish was to capitalise on the low, long term-fixed rates available in France which makes borrowing quite cheap compared to other markets and keep the cash to invest somewhere else in the UK. 

Our approach:

Here the focus was to find the smallest overall deposit. Some banks can provide Loan to Value (LTV) up to 100% but then generally require assets under management (pledged to the mortgage) of 30% of the mortgage amount. This means that the net loan to value is actually 70%. We offered the 85% LTV with no collateral required besides the 15% deposit. 

In addition, as the clients were already insured in the UK, we could waive the usually mandatory life insurance. 

While we were all in lockdown, with banks staff working from home, surveys being done from the desk, we managed to get the mortgage offer under 25 days after initial submission. It is important to know that the average duration of the process is about 105 days.The clients, the banks, everyone involved worked hard!