Best Mortgage Brokers in Dublin for Self-Employed Applicants

Lenders typically require two years of certified or audited accounts, prepared by an accountant who is a member of a recognised professional body such as Chartered Accountants Ireland, ACCA, CPA Ireland or ICAI. In addition expect to provide two years of Form 11 tax returns, Revenue Notices of Assessment, six months of business and personal bank statements, a statement of current tax clearance, and — for company directors — latest management accounts plus a projection for the current year signed by the accountant.

It varies by lender. For sole traders, most Irish lenders use net profit from certified accounts, averaged over the last two years; some cap increases between the two years. For company directors, lenders typically use directors' salary plus a share of retained profit, provided the company is profitable and solvent. A few lenders will also allow add-backs for pension contributions and non-cash items. The choice of lender can materially change how much a self-employed applicant can borrow.

The same as any other first-time buyer under Central Bank of Ireland rules — 10 per cent of the property value, with borrowing capped at 4 times gross household income, subject to the lender's own affordability assessment. However lenders may apply stricter affordability stress tests to self-employed income, reducing the maximum loan below the headline 4× LTI figure. A broker can model this accurately from your accounts before you go to market.

It is difficult but not impossible. The standard requirement across Irish lenders is two full years of trading accounts. A small number of lenders will consider one year of accounts where the applicant has a prior PAYE career in the same sector and clear continuity of income — for example an IT contractor who left PAYE employment 14 months ago to contract in the same role. A broker will know which lenders are currently open to such cases.

Usually not. Most Dublin brokers are paid by the lender on drawdown whether the applicant is PAYE or self-employed. Some brokers charge an additional fee for particularly complex self-employed cases — for example where multiple limited companies, a holding structure or recent restructuring is involved — but any fee must be disclosed in writing in the Terms of Business before you engage the broker, as required by the Central Bank.

A contract of indefinite duration is a permanent employment contract with no fixed end date. Irish lenders generally prefer PAYE applicants on such contracts. Contractors on rolling fixed-term contracts are often treated as self-employed for underwriting purposes, even where tax is deducted at source. Brokers can advise on which lenders apply a more accommodating policy to long-tenured contractors with evidence of continuous renewal.

Some lenders will take a share of retained profits into account when assessing a director's income, typically requiring the company to be consistently profitable, solvent and for the director to be able to extract the profit as dividend or salary. Other lenders will only consider directors' salary and dividends actually paid and reported on the Form 11. A broker will match you to the lender whose self-employed income policy extracts the highest affordable loan from your specific accounts.