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Buying a house in Ireland as a foreigner

I am a foreigner in Ireland, on a yearly work-permit to be exact. Buying a house is easy. All you have to do is have the price in cash and the rest is paper work.

Getting the cash though is another matter. No mortgage provider I have spoken to will loan me something that will take 35 years to repay. I see a bit of logic in it but at the same time I see an opportunity for a mortgage provider willing to back foreigners who plan to live in Ireland.

I should clarify “foreigner”: I am from Africa, South Africa to be precise. Thus something that may work for EU foreign-nationals (e.g. Polish) probably won’t work for me.

My two options are; wait 4 years until I become a citizen and then get a mortgage. Or, go 50/50 with an Irish citizen who I trust since it will be their name on the deed.

Anybody have any other options? Anybody know of a mortgage provider who backs foreigners?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 3:55 pm and is filed under AAA, buy, foreigner, house, mortgage. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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James Mernin 1 year ago 1 point
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Hmm, you'd have thought in the current climate that they'd be falling over themselves to load you the money. I have come across this problem before when a non-Irish neighbour of mine wanted to do the same. However, he seemed to think he only needed to be living here 1 year instead of 4.

I might be worth contacting the Financial Regulator of some department therein. Isn't there an ad on the TV at present promoting some branch of the Financial Regulator, things explained in plain English etc. www.itsyourmoney.ie ???

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Martin Murphy 1 year ago 1 point
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Seems crazy to me. You'd imagine that with a secured loan there wouldn't be a problem. Even if you were to skip the country, it's unlikely that you'd be able to bring the house away with you and the bank would have possession of the deeds.
It's unlikely to work, but have you tried a South African bank?
The citizens' advice bureau might be able to help given the numbers of people immigrating here.

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Leandro Iwai 1 year ago 1 point
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Hey Paul, same situation here hehe any news?

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denni 8 months ago 1 point
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Dont dont put the house into anyone elses name but yours!

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Buying a house in Ireland as a foreigner

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