Why are Mortgage Lenders so in love with the SA302?
Since the start of 2012, our self-employed applicants are being asked for SA302’s by nearly all Mortgage Lenders. This can be a tricky one as these elusive pieces of HMRC paperwork are only supplied by the Tax Office if you ask them to calculate your tax payment. Most of our clients calculate their own tax payment or pay a Professional such as an Accountant to do it for them. Therefore, they not only do not hold SA302’s, in most cases they have never received one, or even heard of them.
Why can’t Lender’s work on a reference from an Accountant or prepared Accounts?
That would seem to be the simple answer, but in today’s market simple does not seem to work; we even had one mainstream Lender refusing to issue an offer without an SA302 even though the clients Accountant could confirm his income, the Business where he was a Partner could confirm income, and his Bank Statements showed a regular five figure monthly payment from the Business.
click here if you are self-employed and need a mortgage.
So what is an SA302?
Google will tell you it is a part of a Ricoh photocopier, a porcine antibody, and a thirty inch convection wall oven – no mention of HMRC.
You can get smart and try a search on the HMRC website home page.
Sorry…
There are no results for SA302
Further fishing in the HMRC Self-Assessment section will give you the revelation …
Receiving your tax calculation
You’ll only get a tax calculation (form SA302) if:
you sent in or made an amendment to a paper tax return and asked HMRC to work out your tax
you sent in a tax return but HMRC doesn’t agree with your tax calculation
But my Lender tells me I need an SA302 to get my Mortgage – how can I get one?
Don’t try to find your SA302 online for download. You might find your tax calculation, but that is not your SA302, it doesn’t even say SA302 on it (but neither does an SA302, so let’s not go there).
You could ask your Lender, Mortgage Broker, Accountant, and Granny where to get your SA302 and get four different answers.
click here if you are self-employed and need a mortgage.
How to get an SA302
We only know of one way to get your SA302 and that is to call the HMRC contact centre and request it is sent to you by post.
A little tip before you call; make sure you have plenty of time and patience. The last two calls we made on behalf of our clients took us 5 minutes (pretty efficient when you are used to calling mortgage lenders), and 22 minutes (painful whichever way you look at it).
Have ready:
The Full Name of the person you want the SA302’s for (easy if it’s you)
Their Full current Address
Their date of birth
Their 10 digit individual tax code
Their National Insurance number (we like to have both)
Remember:
Be sure which tax years you need; we would recommend you request the last three tax years with the most recent ending not more than 18 months ago – that will satisfy most Lenders.
Unless you are the tax payer the HRMC agent will not discuss detail with you. So be sure returns have been filed for the years figures you need.
HMRC will post the SA302’s only to the registered address. Their post is very slow (yes even slower than that postcard from Benidorm you got last Thursday) and could take 7 to 10 days.
That SA302 phone number
Call 0845 900 0444
Ignore the first automatic option set
Select option 2 in the main menu set of options
Select option 5 in the third set of options
Wait patiently and a member of HMRC call centre staff will answer. They are a nice bunch and handle your query quite quickly once you get through.
click here if you are self-employed and need a mortgage.
Late yesterday afternoon Nat West announced a temporary withdrawal of interest only options on it’s mortgage range.
The Government’s Newbuy Guarantee Scheme was launched today.
