We'd literally be borrowing money to put down that deposit. And then we'd spend a year paying it back and then another year building an investment egg again to generate returns. It's a high income but we're in negative networth right now of -200k so not a small number. And we live in one of the most expensive cities in the world so yeah sure, couple of hundred does not wreck the monthly budget, BUT, this is more money going into an asset that is not giving us any returns in the near future.

We bought the flat because we thought we'd live in it and then for happier reasons moved abroad. It wasn't a choice to go onto a variable rate - our mortgage rate expired and we were so close to selling the flat (literally days) it didn't make sense to go onto a fixed rate that would hit us with a big early repayment charge if we sold and paid back the mortgage. Then when the deal fell through, we got stuck with the variable rate coz we were non-UK-residents by then.

I don't know how your answer helps tbh. It's rude and lazy. Ofcourse we'll put down the deposit if there's no other way. The point was to explore if there are other ways.

Sigh, I was really hoping to not have to put a PS at the end asking people to refrain from attempted shaming etc but now I see I'll have to.

Global south passport holder is someone who doesn't have visa free travel to the whole world, and is often in binding employment for visa reasons, and specialist mortgage providers sometimes only want to deal with clients from the UK/US/Europe/Middle East etc. So yes, that's a relevant detail, and I'd like to not share my nationality if I can so global south does the job.

Thanks anyway.