CIS Mortgage with Parents
YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP REPAYMENTS ON YOUR MORTGAGE.
Most buy to let mortgages are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority
CIS Mortgage with Parents
David Sharpstone talks to us about guarantor mortgages.
Podcast approved by The Openwork Partnership on 09/06/2025.
Can I get a mortgage as a CIS worker with my parents? Can you use parents as a guarantor? How does it work?
If you’re a CIS worker, the reason you’d want to add your parents to your mortgage would be for affordability. Your income might not be sufficient on your own, so you need an additional income.
It can be a great idea to add your parents to the mortgage, and it can be done. But there are things to factor in – such as your parents’ ages. If you wanted a mortgage for 25 years, for example, most lenders want applicants to be no older than 75 at the end of the term.
If they’re 50 now and you want a 25-year mortgage, you could get away with that – as long as your parents aren’t doing a manual job. Otherwise, the lender would want that to finish by their 70th birthday.
We’ve also got to factor in their own mortgage, liabilities and financial commitments. Sometimes adding parents to boost affordability can actually do the opposite. If they’ve got their own mortgage, we’ve got to factor that cost in – plus any financial dependents, loans, credit cards and car finance.
That said, it’s a very useful tool that often works. We do a lot of mortgages for CIS workers by adding on parents for affordability purposes.
Are there particular products for CIS mortgages with parents?
Some CIS-friendly mortgage lenders do something called Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor. Here, we can add the parent onto the mortgage for affordability, but they don’t appear on the deeds. You’re then not liable to the higher rate of stamp duty. The property you’re buying with your parents also won’t fall into their estate for inheritance tax planning.
That’s the only way a guarantor can work in modern day mortgages. You can’t just say that your dad will pick up the tab if you don’t pay. It doesn’t work like that – they have to be on the mortgage or on the deeds – or both.
Is it easier to get a guarantor mortgage with your parents, even as a CIS worker?
If you’re getting a mortgage on your own, we’ve only got one income to deal with. Adding on a second, third or fourth income means it’s less easy – there’s more that can go wrong and more questions from the mortgage lender.
There’s more scrutiny of finances, incomings and outgoing. The more people you add to any mortgage, the more difficult it gets – whether you’re a CIS worker or not.
Is there an age limit when parents are mortgage guarantors?
The age limit would be 65. If somebody is already within a few years of state retirement age, most mortgage lenders would say that’s too old. If they’re younger than 65 it’s possible.
If you use somebody’s income to boost mortgage affordability, the mortgage lender has to look at the feasibility of them doing their job in older age. If it’s a non-manual job, the lender may let you take that mortgage until your parents are 75. For a manual job, normally age 70 is the limit.
It’s not about the age at the point of application, its age at the end of the mortgage term.
What are the risks to parents of being a guarantor on a mortgage and any differences here as a CIS worker?
If you’re a CIS worker and you want to add a parent onto your mortgage as a guarantor, there are risks. The first risk to your parents is that if you don’t pay the mortgage, they’re fully liable.
It’s called being ‘jointly and severally’ liable for the entire mortgage payment.
The other risk is that if they are named on the deeds of the property it would potentially form part of their legal estate. I’m not a tax planner or an expert in this, so get legal advice, but there are potential implications for inheritance tax planning and estate planning.
That risk could be mitigated if they’re not on the deeds of the property, but just on the mortgage – and that’s how Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor works.
Do the parents and child both need good credit for a guarantor mortgage? Does this differ if you are a CIS worker?
If you’re a CIS worker, you want to add your parents onto a mortgage and one of you has got bad credit, it will have an impact. The mortgage lender is going to take the worst status, not the best. If one of you has a county court judgment or a default, we will need a lender to cater for that.
It won’t be a high street lender. They generally don’t lend to people with CCJs and defaults. There are some exceptions if it’s quite historic or quite small. I’d have to look at the credit file to know the specific answer.
You might need a higher deposit – perhaps 15% – and you might pay a high interest rate if one of you has bad credit. Every circumstance is different, so if I were doing this mortgage I’d need to know the scenario. Sometimes, what people think is bad actually isn’t an issue.
Speak To An Expert
Can a parent and child get a guarantor mortgage with a gifted deposit?
If the parents are paying the deposit, it’s not a gift. They’re buying a property and putting their own money in.
Let’s imagine someone is buying a property with their mum. The deposit money is sitting in Dad’s account, but only mum is joining the mortgage for affordability. Dad could then gift the deposit to his wife. That would be a gifted deposit scenario for a joint mortgage for a CIS worker with a parent. It doesn’t happen that often, but it’s possible.
Do you need a deposit for a guarantor mortgage as a CIS worker?
You do need a deposit and the minimum is 5%. The more deposit you put down, the better the interest rate.
There’s no difference for CIS workers. The same rules apply whether you’re CIS, employed or self-employed.
What power does a parent guarantor have?
They have the power to sleep at night, knowing that they’ve done great things for their child. But there are no additional powers on the mortgage. They couldn’t sell the property under their child’s nose – both owners of the property would have to sign something to agree to the sale.
If a parent is a guarantor on a CIS mortgage, how long are they liable?
On the whole, if a parent is guarantor on a CIS mortgage, they are liable for as long as their name is on that mortgage. If it’s a 25 year mortgage, they’re on the hook for 25 years. Should the child not pay, the parent has to – otherwise they’re going to get bad credit.
There is an exception to this. I don’t want to overcomplicate it, but there are some mortgage products called Family Assisted mortgages, where parents are on the mortgage with their child for the first few years.
It’s often where the child is in a profession like medicine or law where they start off on a low income but there’s a clear career progression in salary. For the first five years, the parent is named on the mortgage and may put up some collateral, such as a portion of their own property against the mortgage.
After five years, the child remortgages onto a new product and takes the parent off the hook.
Their income should have reached a level high enough to sustain that mortgage without the need for the parent’s income. I don’t do many of these, perhaps one or two a year, when it’s a suitable solution.
Do parents need to already own their own property to be a guarantor?
If they are going on the mortgage as a joint borrower, they don’t have to own their own property. In fact, if they don’t, it generally helps affordability. With a mortgage on that property, we’ve got to take into account the cost of that and also running the home.
The exception is again a Family Assisted mortgage. By the way, this can sometimes be a way to get 100% lending. The parent might contribute 20% of the mortgage value with some collateral. Let’s say the new property is £100,000 and the child wants a 100% mortgage.
One mortgage lender right now, in May 2025, would put a £20,000 charge on the parents’ property to reduce their risk, and provide 100% lending to the child. Obviously the parent has to have a property in the first place to securitise that.
How can a mortgage broker help here?
It’s really important to seek advice in this situation. Adding a parent to a mortgage as an additional borrower, combined with all the nuances of CIS lending would make it near impossible to navigate on your own.
I would always recommend you speak to a broker anyway, but certainly if you are CIS and adding a parent to a mortgage. It’s really difficult to find the right lender for that circumstance, so speak to a CIS mortgage specialist like me.
Approved by The Openwork Partnership on 09/06/2025.
For specialist tax advice, please refer to an accountant or tax specialist.
YOUR HOME MAY BE REPOSSESSED IF YOU DO NOT KEEP UP WITH YOUR MORTGAGE REPAYMENTS.
CIS Mortgage Advice is a trade name of Just Mortgages Direct Limited, which is an appointed representative of The Openwork Partnership, a trading style of Openwork Limited which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Useful Links
We Say Yes To CIS
We aim to provide advice to those with:
- Less than 1 year self-employed
- 5% Deposit
- Less than 3 years in the UK
- High day-rate with low net profit
