Case Study
Dubai-based UK lawyer, buying in Hampstead before returning home
Six years in DIFC. A two-year secondment that became indefinite. A baby on the way, a partnership decision eighteen months out, and a Hampstead house the family wanted waiting for them when they returned to London. The vendor wanted exchange in six weeks. The income mix, including a AED base, DIFC bonus, partner-track carry, which was the kind that thins the lender list to a handful.
A UK-born corporate lawyer, late thirties, six years at the Dubai office of a Magic Circle firm. AED-denominated package, including a base, DIFC performance bonus, and a partner-track carry allocation. His wife was five months pregnant. The family had taken the decision: they would be returning to the UK before the partnership decision lands eighteen months out, and they were not having the baby in DIFC.
They had been outbid twice in the previous year on London properties they liked, watching from 3,500 miles away. The Hampstead property was the family base they wanted waiting for them: a three-bedroom architect-designed detached house in a conservation area near Hampstead Heath, at £1 million, with the vendor pushing for completion in six weeks.
The brief was clean and the constraints were not negotiable. A three-bedroom detached house in Hampstead at £1 million, freehold. A 25% deposit of £250,000, £750,000 of borrowing, 75% LTV. Capital and interest on a 25-year term, 5-year fixed. Consent-to-let from completion, with the property let on a corporate relocation tenancy through to family return.
The complications did the work of explaining why a high-street route was not the answer. The income mix is treated very differently across lenders, as several panels exclude carry entirely. The deposit included around £55,000 gifted from his UK-resident parents. Conveyancing had to flex across an eight-hour time-zone gap. And the vendor was firm on six weeks.
The first move was lender mapping. The client-facing list narrowed to a small subset of the wider expat panel, with the lenders comfortable recognising AED base, DIFC bonus, and a discounted carry component, with consent-to-let permitted from completion. At 75% LTV with non-resident, non-UK-domiciled income, that is a genuinely small group.
The income evidence pack was built before the application went in: three years of UAE payslips, two years of bonus letters from the firm, written confirmation of partner-track status and the carry allocation methodology, and a 12-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 in a different time zone.
Source-of-funds documentation was the next pressure point. AED bonus accumulation traced through UAE bank statements; the parental gift evidenced via a gift letter, the parents’ UK bank statements, and confirmation of the UK provenance of the funds. The AML pack was routed to the lender’s specialist expat unit rather than retail underwriting.
Conveyancing was sequenced around the early-morning UAE / late-afternoon UK overlap, with a UK solicitor experienced in overseas-borrower workflows. Digital signing where the lender permitted; remote ID per the firm’s overseas-client protocol. Valuation timing was aligned with the corporate relocation tenancy provider’s reference letter to support the consent-to-let case. Two contingency days were built into each major handover.
The mortgage offer was issued and exchange completed inside the vendor’s six-week window. The 5-year fix landed at pricing typical of the structure, with a specialist expat lender, 75% LTV, consent-to-let permitted. From completion, the property was let on a corporate relocation tenancy at the upper end of the £4,000–£4,500 monthly range.
The family has the Hampstead house waiting for them. The baby is due ahead of the planned UK return. At the end of the 5-year fix, the client has a defined refinance path when the family is UK-resident and the property converts from let to owner-occupied, subject to circumstances at the time.
