Skip links

Mortgage Calculator
Client Portal

My Contractor Broker

Moving House as a Contractor

Moving house as a contractor can feel much harder than it needs to be, especially when some lenders still struggle to assess contract income properly.

Selling your home and moving on to something bigger, better located, or closer to the right schools is a big step.

Standard mortgage criteria doesn’t reflect how contractors work. Underwriters often try to assess contract income in the same way as permanent employment, which can limit borrowing and slow the process when selling your home and buying another.

Moving house as a contractor? See what you could borrow.

Check what you can borrow

Contract-Based Mortgages for Home Movers

Specialist support means that your affordability is assessed through contract income rather than payslips or historic accounts. It’s this approach that lets us support mortgages for contract workers by focusing on annualised contract earnings for a clearer view of affordability when selling your home to move.

Salary and dividends alone don’t tell the full story.

For contractors operating through limited companies, a low salary and restricted dividends for tax planning purposes can make income appear lower than it really is. Even with two or three years of accounts, those figures may not reflect true earning potential.

Actual affordability isn’t always shown in a payslip.

Umbrella contractors face similar issues. Payslips often break income into basic pay, overtime, bonuses, and commission. This confuses traditional assessments and often reduces borrowing power.

Mortgage Decisions Based on Real Earnings

There’s no reliance on salary, dividends, or fragmented payslip figures.

Contract-based underwriting means that lenders assess contracts for mortgages using gross annual contract income.

Many of the lenders we’ve built relationships with use this approach, which allows borrowing of up to five or six times gross annual earnings. This makes a huge difference when upsizing or selling your home to relocate.

Supporting a Wide Range of Contractor Setups

Contractors trading via a limited company, even in the first year

Contractors using an umbrella company

Day one contractors

Borrowing can be based on annualised day rates, with options that allow deposits as low as 5%, helping make the move smoother and more achievable without forcing contract income into outdated lending models.

Mortgage Calculator

FAQs

Yes. Moving house as a contractor is possible with lenders that assess income using contract earnings rather than standard payslips or dividends.

Many will. When selling your home and moving, some lenders assess affordability using annualised contract income instead of traditional employment figures.

They can do. Low salary and restricted dividends often reduce borrowing under standard criteria, which is why contract-based assessments are important when moving.

They can be. Payslips and P60s may split income into basic pay, bonuses, and overtime, but specialist lenders can assess this more accurately for mortgages for contract workers.