Hi all,

I haven't seen any recent posts on is topic and wondering if anyone has been successful in obtaining a swiss mortgage for a property in the uk? I currently have a mortgage with zkb, my partner lives in hampshire and we would like to buy a flat in london as a half way meeting point for us (but not sell up our individual properties). Interest rates are far more attractive here in switzerland so our preference would be to have a swiss mortgage.

Has anyone been able to use their swiss property as collateral for an additional mortgage or an increase to your existing mortgage? My swiss property has appreciated in value an amount that is greater than we would like to borrow, but i'm not interested in selling up at the moment due to the capital gains tax i would pay now.

Thanks for any thoughts!

I think the answer, for all the obvious reasons , is no ....

To get a mortgage in the UK , I had to go to a UK lender. If you have a few mill this position may be different. Of course , you can try a Swiss bank witha branch in the UK , but they will use competitive local rates ....

OP - welcome to the Forum, you might like to post an introduction thread so people know who they are helping

No, you can't - loads of reasons why not, mainly to do with currency (if your house stays at the value but the FX moves, suddenly their asset is worth less), housing market (Swiss banks don't know the property values) and asset security (if you default, they need to navigate UK law, rather than familiar Swiss law).

Also - if it were possible, everybody would do it.....and arbitrage would say that Swiss mortgage rates would increase!

In theory it's doable... in practice no bank would do it for paltry interest they would get... unless you're thinking of buying something upwards of a million don't bother talking to anyone... there is just not enough in it for them.

Thanks all for the replies, will post if i encounter any success.

About 30 years ago I was working in Munich and I tried to buy a brand new 3 bedroom detached house in Chichester, Sussex, for £30,000.

I easily arranged a personal loan from a bank in Munich for the D Mark equivalent of £ 25,000 at an interest of 5%, they just wanted a bank guarantee from a respectable bank or insurance company in UK. This was a perfectly normal arrangement, the UK bank would get 1% p.a. and would have expenditure if I defaulted and they had to sell the house to pay the German loan.

I went to my Lloyds bank in Hampshire, customer for 5 years, and asked for a guarantee for the £25,000 with the deeds of the house as security. They refused, even with me putting in 30% of my own capital.

They said house prices might slump over 25 years. They said the pound might rise against the D-Mark (It was 4.15 to £1. Later the pound fell to DM 2.25 before the €uro came along..)

I later heard from a London Banker that in that situation £25,000 would not have been any problem. I believe they wanted me to take a Lloyds mortgage at 10.5%, and being difficult I didn't co-operate!
.

Although I'm no expert, I think in theory you should be able to do it if you can provide a security here in Switzerland. E.g. you have a property here, which the bank can use as a collateral in case you miss payments or decide to skip the country. But this is only my personal opinion, you should talk to your bank or financial advisor.

Good luck!