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I am currently living in the Netherlands and I have quite the accumulation of UK student debt, currently it's sitting at around £50000 but based on my repayment schedule, it wouldn't affect my ability to pay back a mortgage. I've tried the online calculators offered by places such as ABN & AMRO and ING and my student loan status has a very negative impact on my calculation. I'm not sure how I should approach classifying or presenting my current debt situation as I earn more than enough to make the repayment terms on a €200'000 loan (~€600 P/M), in fact I pay more now for renting per month (€1250 P/M). How should I approach trying to get a mortgage with these facts? Does my UK loan have a different form of classification rather than being presented as regular debt? Is it equal to Student Debt accrued in the Netherlands?

edit:

To clarify the student debt is purely a student loan taken out with the Student Loans Company, furthermore if I lose my job I will not have to repay so I am more likely to receive better judgement over my actual debt.

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    Is this mostly "student loan" (from the government), or other forms of student debt (free bank overdrafts for example)? The latter is just like any other form of debt, however it's probably worth editing the question to point out that student loan replayments are tied to your income - which means that if you lose your job you suddenly don't have to repay. That means you are more likely to be able to continue to repay the mortgage.
    – Martin Bonner supports Monica
    Aug 15, 2019 at 15:20
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    However, it is quite possible that Dutch banks are just not familiar with UK student loans (particularly as Dutch students in the UK don't have to pay tuition fees).
    – Martin Bonner supports Monica
    Aug 15, 2019 at 15:21
  • @MartinBonner It's purely student loans taken with the student loans company, also very true I'll edit that in. Also your further comment is also a very valid point, thanks for the info.
    – li x
    Aug 15, 2019 at 20:14

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After consulting a few mortgage providers via there mortgage advisor representatives, I've gained some clarity over the whole process, finally. So there are three possibilities for how they will view your foreign student debt:

  1. They will look at it from the starting amount and how much you currently owe irrespective of the amount you may pay monthly. So if for instance you have £50000 of student debt it will be viewed as such, this is by far the worst outcome when attempting to garner a mortgage in the Netherlands.

  2. They will calculate your mortgage based on your monthly repayment structure, so for instance if I have £50000 student debt but I pay a monthly payment of £140 they will attempt to match this to a student loan. In my case rabobank made this calculation out to be €7000 of equivalent debt.

  3. The advice would be to not declare your foreign student debt at all and seek to gain the maximum amount of mortgage possible. Whenever this has been suggested to me it comes along with the warning of 'this is not legal advice' and in my opinion is walking along the unlawful route. Though the pretext often given is that there is no central registry and they will never be able to find out.

Furthermore the dutch loan system while more accommodating than the UK interms of generally allowing a 100% loan is rigid in certain cases. In the case of foreign debt it does not seem like they have any logical recourse in place. In my own circumstance I will be paying far more to rent then to mortgage a property but based on the guidelines set out by the providers and advisors I saw I would not qualify to mortgage a property that would reduce my monthly renting costs by over half.

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In the Netherlands for a mortgage they expect that you pay 2% of your debt each month. For student debt (before 2015) it is 0,75% and for newer ones it is 0,45%.

You can go to an Mortgage advisor and request and 'introduction meeting'*(These are free). You can ask the question an maybe they can answer them.

Some (smaller) mortgage providers don't want 'complicated' cases, if that happens, the 3 big banks(ING, ABNAMRO, Rabobank) may be your best bet.

Most likely some banks can give you a better offer than the 2% the calculators currently use, but I don't know of they have rules/guidelines for it.

Dutch Source (Consumers Association)

Dutch Source (mortgage provider/bank)

*maybe there is a better word for it

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    While this provides some good advice, it doesn't necessarily answer my question. I'm well aware getting an introductionary meeting is possible, but I'd like to approach the situation having already filled in the blanks as to not make myself a problem case.
    – li x
    Aug 19, 2019 at 8:36
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    Do you mean paying back 2% of the mortgage amount every month? That seems absurdly high.
    – gnasher729
    Aug 20, 2019 at 18:14
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    @gnasher729 I mean that most mortgage providers expect that you pay 2% for all (non-student) loans back each month. So that part of your income you cannot use to pay the mortgage reducing the amount they offer you.
    – Aldwoni
    Aug 20, 2019 at 19:35

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