A UK corporate lawyer six years into a Dubai posting wanted a Hampstead base in place before the family’s return to London. The income mix was AED-denominated with a partner-track carry component, and the vendor was pushing for exchange in six weeks.
Background
The client was a UK-born corporate lawyer in his late thirties, six years into a posting at the Dubai office of a Magic Circle firm. His package was AED-denominated and structured across a base salary, a DIFC performance bonus, and a partner-track carry allocation. With the partnership decision eighteen months out, the family had decided to return to London ahead of it, and they wanted their UK base in place before they arrived.
The property they had found was a three-bedroom architect-designed detached house in a Hampstead conservation area near the Heath, on the market at £1 million. The vendor was pushing for exchange in six weeks.
What needed to happen
The brief was a £1 million purchase at 75% LTV: a £250,000 deposit, £750,000 of borrowing on a capital and interest basis over 25 years, fixed for five. Consent-to-let was needed from completion, with the property let through to the family’s return.
The complication was the income. The mix is treated very differently across lenders, and several panels exclude carry components entirely. Add a non-resident, non-UK-domiciled borrower and a six-week exchange across an eight-hour time-zone gap, and the high-street route fell away quickly.
How we worked the case
Lender selection was the first piece of work. At 75% LTV with this income mix and consent-to-let from completion, the working panel narrowed to the specialist expat lenders comfortable recognising AED base, DIFC bonus, and a discounted carry allocation as a coherent income assessment.
From there, the income evidence pack was built before the application went in. Three years of UAE payslips, two years of bonus letters, written confirmation of partner-track status and the carry methodology, and a twelve-month AED-to-GBP exchange-rate analysis to support GBP-denominated affordability. Front-loading the evidence reduces the lender’s query loop, which matters when the client is operating in a different time zone and the exchange clock is running. Conveyancing was sequenced around the early-morning UAE and late-afternoon UK overlap, with a UK solicitor experienced in overseas-borrower workflows.
Expert Insight: “On a six-week exchange across an eight-hour time-zone gap, the real work happens before the application goes in. Get the income story straight, agree the right lender for the structure, and the rest follows.” Justin Whitelock, Founder of Mortgage London
Outcome
The mortgage offer was issued and exchange completed inside the vendor’s six-week window, with a specialist expat lender at 75% LTV on a five-year fix and consent-to-let from completion. The property was let from completion through to the family’s planned return to London.
Key takeaways
- Specialist expat panels recognise income mixes that the high-street will not, with base salary, bonus, and partner-track carry assessed together rather than triaged into the parts a lender is willing to count.
- A six-week exchange across an eight-hour time-zone gap is achievable when the income evidence pack is built before the application goes in, rather than assembled in response to lender queries afterwards.
- Consent-to-let from completion is a foundational feature of the right product, not a permission to chase from a residential lender after the fact.