Apply for a mortgage with first direct

Here’s what you need to know about eligibility, ways to apply and more.

We’re careful when it comes to offering mortgages. To apply for a first direct mortgage you and any joint applicant must:

be a permanent UK resident and UK tax payer
provide evidence of your income and outgoings to show you can afford it.

You can also apply online if:

you’re aged 69 or less at the time of application (applies to all applicants)
the mortgage term will end before age 70 or anticipated retirement age, whichever is sooner (applies to all applicants)
you have found, and have had an offer accepted on a property (purchase cases only)
there is no change of property owners (remortgage customers only)
you wish to borrow the same or less than what you owe to your current lender (remortgage cases only).

Please note: You can't apply online if you own your property outright and wish to secure new borrowing against it.

Here’s a snippet of what we offer:

Minimum loan: £10,000
Maximum term: 40 years
Minimum term: 2 years
Maximum loan to value (LTV): 95%

Think carefully before securing other debts against your home. Your home may be repossessed if you don't keep up repayments on your mortgage.

Step 3. Read our guidance

Guide for specific circumstances

Read all that apply to you - it's important, must-know information

Self employed

How we assess the application

Depending on your circumstances, we'll need to see the following documents:

Type of self employment	Documents required
Type of self employmentSole trader, General Partnerships or Limited Liability Partnership with fewer than 200 partners	Documents required your last 2 years’ worth of the following documents (the most recent year must be dated within the last 18 months): Tax Year Overviews, and, Tax Calculations, evidenced by: a print out from HMRC website, or, an SA302, or, the computation produced by your accountant that is submitted to HMRC. NOTE: Additional information (i.e. business bank statements, further HMRC documentation) may be required by the underwriter to support the application.
Type of self employmentLimited Liability Partnership (LLPs) with 200 or more partners	Documents requiredA letter from the company finance director or accountant detailing your earnings over the past 2 years, dated within the last 3 months.
Type of self employmentLimited company director with 25% or more shareholding	Documents requiredyour last 2 years' finalised financial accounts (the most recent year must be dated within the last 18 months) NOTE: Additional information (i.e. business bank statements) may be required by the underwriter to support the application. If there are multiple Directors within the business, and the financial accounts don't confirm the distribution of salary to each director, we’ll need evidence from either of the following: the last 2 years’ P60s the last 2 years' tax calculations and corresponding tax year overviews (a print out from HMRC website, an SA302 or the computation produced by your accountant that is submitted to HMRC).
Type of self employmentLimited company director with less than 25% shareholding	Documents requiredWe'll consider you to be employed - please go to the 'Permanent employment' section.
Type of self employmentSelf employed customers trading less than 2 years	Documents required we'll require a minimum of 1 year's finalised financial accounts (limited companies) or 1 year's tax calculations and tax year overviews (sole trader or partnership) dated within the last 18 months your latest 3 months business bank statements. The latest date showing on the statement must be within 35 days of the application start date.

Permanent employed

If you're in permanent employment we'll need to see evidence of your income. The table below summarises the documents we'll need, depending on how frequently you're paid:

NOTE: Where an award letter is being used as evidence of income, it must clearly state the exact amount that will be paid within 3 months of the date on the award letter.

Income type	Basic income (including any permanent allowances)	Shift allowances	Variable income (Bonus/overtime/commission)
Income typeWeekly	Basic income (including any permanent allowances)Latest 4 payslips	Shift allowancesLatest 6 payslips	Variable income (Bonus/overtime/commission)Latest 6 payslips
Income typeFortnightly	Basic income (including any permanent allowances)Latest 2 payslips	Shift allowancesLatest 6 payslips	Variable income (Bonus/overtime/commission)Latest 6 payslips
Income typeFour Weekly	Basic income (including any permanent allowances)Latest payslip	Shift allowancesLatest 3 payslips	Variable income (Bonus/overtime/commission)Latest 3 payslips
Income typeMonthly	Basic income (including any permanent allowances)Latest payslip	Shift allowancesLatest 3 payslips	Variable income (Bonus/overtime/commission)Latest 3 payslips
Income typeQuarterly	Basic income (including any permanent allowances)N/A	Shift allowancesN/A	Variable income (Bonus/overtime/commission)Latest 4 equivalent payslips or award letters showing payment. The payslips or award letters must include a payment that has been paid within the last 3 months.
Income typeHalf Yearly	Basic income (including any permanent allowances)N/A	Shift allowancesN/A	Variable income (Bonus/overtime/commission)Latest 4 equivalent payslips or award letters showing payment. The payslips or award letters must include a payment that has been paid within the last 6 months.
Income typeAnnually	Basic income (including any permanent allowances)N/A	Shift allowancesN/A	Variable income (Bonus/overtime/commission)Latest 2 equivalent payslips or award letters showing payment. The payslips or award letters must include a payment that has been paid within the last 12 months.

General property criteria

All properties must be in the UK and be of standard construction (made of bricks, with a tiled roof) with a working kitchen and bathroom.

At the moment, we don’t lend on Buy to Let properties or where the property has been bought under a right to buy or shared ownership scheme. The property must be used as your main residence and not for business purposes.

For leasehold properties, we’ll only lend if there is at least 50 years left on the lease at the end of the proposed mortgage term.

New build properties

We count a property as being new build if it's less than two years old or has never been occupied in its current format. If you're borrowing against a new build property:

we may lend up to a maximum of 90% Loan to Value (LTV)

For remortgaging

Properties with land

If the property has more than 15 acres:

you’ll need to confirm there are no agricultural restrictions attached to the property and that it’s only used for personal use
we’ll only be able to lend you up to 75% of the purchase price or valuation, whichever is the lowest.

Flats

we may lend up to a maximum of 90% Loan to Value (LTV)
we may not offer a mortgage on a flat if it's in the same building as a commercial property
if the building containing the flat has more than 4 floors, it must have a working lift
we may lend on flats within ex-local authority blocks with 6 or fewer floors (subject to LTV restrictions)
we generally can't offer lending on freehold flats in England and Wales. However, there may be some circumstances in which we can lend – please call us for further details. Flats in Scotland with outright ownership are acceptable
we will consider lending on flats in England and Wales which have suitable remediation schemes, or those where leaseholders are protected under the Building Safety Act. In such cases an EWS1 (External Wall Sytem Fire Review) report is not required
for properties in Scotland and Northern Ireland where the EWS1 (External Wall System Fire Review) report confirms that the property does not meet minimum safety standards, we will be unable to proceed with an application.

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Useful documents

Other handy tools

During your mortgage appointment we’ll ask about your income and outgoings, to help find the right option for you. This appointment usually takes up to 2 hours and you should be somewhere you feel comfortable sharing:

income
credit, store or charge card balances
loans (both sole and joint applicants)
car Leases
pensions
school Fees
childcare
maintenance/Alimony

Please note - If you are just looking to change the rate for your existing mortgage with us, the above list may not be applicable to you.

Step 5. Apply now

Telephone

Our qualified Mortgage Advisers can help you find the right mortgage for you, for free and with no obligation.

To start an application call us to get an Agreement in Principle first. You’ll need information about your income and outgoings to do this.

We’ll let you know what documents you need to send us to support your application. After we’ve got them, we’ll call to arrange a telephone appointment with one of our Mortgage Advisers.

New to first direct

0800 48 24 48

Lines are open Mon to Fri 8am to 8pm, Sat 8am to 6pm and Sun 9am to 6pm

Existing 1st Account holders:

03 456 100 103

Lines are open Mon to Fri 8am to 8pm, Sat 8am to 6pm and Sun 9am to 6pm

Online

Applying online with first direct is quick and easy, if you’re happy to go ahead without mortgage advice.

You need to be aware that if you apply online first direct isn’t required to assess the suitability of the mortgage you choose. And you won’t receive the same protection offered by the Financial Conduct Authority’s rules Opens an overlay [Will show a security message first] as customers who use the advised telephone service.

To apply online all you need to do is:

Go to our Find the mortgage for you tool and fill in your details
Choose your mortgage deal and tap for more details
Click on 'apply online' to agree to the terms, then ‘Agree and continue with application’ to start the form.

Find a mortgage for you

Already applied?

Here are the Next steps in your application

Amend existing online application

If you’ve recently applied for your first direct mortgage online, you can make these changes online too: loan amount, mortgage term, mortgage type and rate type.

Go to our Find the mortgage for you tool, Enter your new details and choose your mortgage from the results. Then press ‘Full details’ and follow the on-screen instructions. By doing this you skip some of the pages that you completed before.

Find out more