I haven't read all the replies so apologies if this had already been covered. But what is stopping you getting a personal loan out for the remainder. e.g. each getting £15k loan. I know its not ideal, but its probably easier than a mortgage. You could even tyr and get 8K of that from a career development loan which is interest free until you finish your course - and by then you may be able to get a mortgage when they free up the market a bit, so you could then get the 30K on a mortgage and pay off your personal loans.

I am not a financial expert so please don't bite my head (and hat) off, just an idea.

I spoke to mortgage advisors in three highstreet banks a couple of months ago and all confirmed that they would give me a mortgage on the basis of my PhD funding.

First time poster but thought my experiences may be useful...

I'm on a PhD stipend but my husband has a 'real' job and we are currently trying to buy a house so are using a mortgage broker to get a mortgage, but the only lender which will acknowledge my stipend seems to be C&G who advised that they will take 75% of my stipend into account. Very frustrating! The most frustrating thing about it is that the banks who will not acknowledge the stipend assume that my husband is supporting the both of us which again limits the amount of money we are able to borrow.

If we manage to work something else out then I will keep you posted, as I have personally found these discussion boards to be very useful and informative in my quest as to sort out a mortgage!

Just another quick thought, some of the banks have taken my part-time teaching wages into account so I don't know if either of you have any sort of part-time work that might add up to a 30K mortgage? Our broker advised that everything adds up, and has never at any point said that we definitley won't be able to get a mortgage using my stipend, just that we're much more limited.

It's all about risk to the lender. You say you're putting down 200K. That being the case, the lender's £30k is safe, if you default they can reimburse themselves from your capital so I'd have thought this was a no brainer for the lender. Have you tried any lenders yet?

Hmmm... I think ours is something of a special case in that we're both doing PhDs (we don't have one persons 'proper' income to take into account). And apparently the fact that theyre guaranteed being able to get back the money from our capital doesn't make a jot of difference :s.....
Maybe we'll try an alternative broker!