How a contractor secured finance to keep an inherited family home

Keeping the home meant solving the estate and the mortgage together.

Following the death of his mother, the client wanted to remain living in the family home while ensuring the estate could be distributed fairly. One other estate property had already been appropriated between beneficiaries, leaving the former family residence as the remaining major asset.

The client was one of four beneficiaries and also an executor. The family’s preferred outcome was for him to become the sole owner, but two sisters did not need their full entitlements paid immediately. One intended to leave a significant portion invested in the property in return for monthly payments, while another was prepared to defer part of her entitlement until the following year.

• Limited UK address history The client had returned to the UK relatively recently, so he did not meet the three-year address-history requirement applied by many mainstream lenders.
• Several uses for the mortgage funds The borrowing needed to help satisfy beneficiary entitlements, settle remaining estate liabilities and provide a modest reserve for associated costs and personal expenditure.
• Deferred beneficiary interests The sisters needed protection for money left within the property without becoming mortgage borrowers or remaining as co-owners.
• Contractor income The client was an experienced contractor working under IR35, with continuous contracting income since 2021 and earnings based on a day-rate arrangement.

Together, these features made lender selection unusually important. The mortgage had to work not only on affordability, but also alongside the probate position and the legal security required by the family arrangement.

Give the lender first-ranking security while protecting deferred family interests.

Stephen focused on lenders able to consider a non-standard ownership and security structure rather than trying to fit the case into criteria that required every beneficiary interest to disappear before completion.

The right lender could assess the whole structure, not one issue in isolation.

The decisive point was the lender’s willingness to accept the proposed security arrangement. The sisters did not need to remain on the title or become responsible for the mortgage, while the lender retained its first charge over the property.

The income assessment also mattered. Rather than treating the client simply as someone outside a standard employed profile, the application showed an established contracting record and the sustainability of the current arrangement. That created a stronger affordability case than a rigid requirement for conventional payslip or self-employed-account history would have allowed.

This combination of legal structure and underwriting meant the family arrangement could be accommodated without asking every beneficiary to take an identical position or forcing the client to abandon his objective of retaining the home.

The property stayed in the family while the estate moved towards resolution.

The completed mortgage enabled the client to make a substantial payment to one sister, settle outstanding estate liabilities and retain a modest reserve for associated costs and personal expenditure.

Just as importantly, the wider family objective was achieved. The client could remain living in his mother’s former home, the sisters had clarity around the financial interests they were leaving in the property, and the estate could progress with a defined ownership and security structure.

Inherited-property mortgages and beneficiary interests.