Firstly, the banks are looking to see that what you say you earn is true, and what you say you spend on existing borrowings is correct.

They will look at your payslips and P60 or tax returns to verify your income.

Then they will check your bank statements to see that your income was received into your bank account.

They will look through your bank statements to identify regular payments you have made – such as your mortgage or rent payment, other loans, credit card repayments, and they will check that you have provided the latest statement of all of these borrowings.

Once they have checked all this information, they calculate that your income vs borrowings and the cost of your French mortgage comply with the 33% income rule.

If, from your bank statements, they see transfers between one bank account to another bank account, they will want to see those statements too. They will want to cross reference them.

If there are any large payments made, or received, they will ask questions – money laundering regulations.

Quite literally, they are looking at a financial snapshot over a three month period, hence if a document is missing, it has to be provided. That can cause unnecessary delays.


Once the financial underwriting has been done and approved, the lender will instruct for the valuation of the property to be carried out.

Valuation is as it implies – it is merely a valuation, it is not a structural survey – basically the lender wants to know that the property is acceptable to them, that the price you are buying the property for, and the amount they are lending to you is fair.



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