The client's details, timings and figures in this case study have been changed. The numbers are illustrative and keep roughly the same shape as the real case so the reasoning holds, but they are not the client's figures and cannot be worked back to them. Lender criteria change often, so this shows how the assessment worked at the time, not what any lender will offer now.

Who

A first-time buyer earning as an online content creator, trading as a sole trader, with around £18,000 deposit and a clean credit file

The income

Turnover a little over £50,000 and taxable profit around £38,000 in the first full-time year, almost all of it platform payouts

The snag

Most lenders want two years of accounts. The income came from a single overseas platform, and the currency question had to be answered before it was asked.

The outcome

Placed with a mainstream high street lender, application submitted within 48 hours of the first enquiry

The enquiry

The client got in touch as a first-time buyer. They earn their living as an online content creator, paid by a large US-based platform, and trade as a sole trader. They had done it part-time for a couple of years alongside a normal PAYE job, then went full-time once the channel could support them.

At the point they contacted me they had one completed tax year as a full-time self-employed person. Turnover for that year was a little over £50,000 and taxable profit around £38,000. Payouts since the year end had held steady or gone up, and the income was almost entirely platform payouts rather than sponsorship deals. This case study is part of my self employed mortgage hub, where every guide I have written for sole traders, directors and contractors sits in one place. If you are in the same position and want the general rules first, I have written up whether you can get a mortgage with one year of accounts.

On the rest of the picture: a deposit of around £18,000, a clean credit file with no missed payments and no credit card debt, and a small amount of finance with under a year left to run.

On paper that is a good applicant. The question was whether lenders would see it that way with only one year's figures and an income that arrives from a single online platform.

What made it harder than a standard case

Three things.

The first was the trading history. A lot of lenders want two years of self-employed accounts and will not consider anything less. That rules out a chunk of the market before you start.

The second was the nature of the income. Content creation is not a trade most underwriters see every day, and an income that comes entirely from one platform raises a fair question about what happens if that platform changes its terms. A lender is lending over 25 or 30 years and wants to know the income is likely to still be there.

The third was currency. Overseas platforms often report earnings in US dollars. If the money reaches a UK bank account still in dollars, or through a payment service that converts it, lenders treat it as foreign currency income, which some will not accept and others reduce to allow for exchange rate movement.

What worked in the client's favour

The part-time period before going full-time turned out to be the most useful fact in the case. A one-year self-employed applicant who started from nothing is a cold start, and underwriters treat it cautiously. An applicant who built the same trade alongside a job, earned from it before going full-time, and then made the switch once it was viable has a track record in the same line of work. Several lenders that consider one-year cases say explicitly that they look at prior experience in the same industry and at income earned before self-employment. That is exactly what this client had, so it went at the front of the covering note rather than being left for the underwriter to find.

The bank statements also helped. The monthly payout landed as a faster payment in sterling with the platform's name as the payer. No dollar amount, no conversion line, no third-party payment service in the chain. From a lender's point of view that is a UK sole trader receiving a monthly sterling payment from a named business customer, and that is how I presented it. The tax calculation was in sterling too, so nothing in the evidence pack showed foreign currency income at all.

Recent payouts were running ahead of the tax year average. That does not change the assessed income, since lenders work from the filed profit figure, but a run of stronger months supports the argument that the business is growing rather than fading.

The numbers

Lenders that accept one year's figures work from the taxable profit, not the turnover. Clients often have the turnover figure in their head as their income, and it is worth correcting that early. On a profit of around £38,000, borrowing would land somewhere in the region of £170,000 to £180,000 depending on the multiple a given lender applies, and I would expect the lower end of that with one year's accounts.

So the deposit was not the constraint. With around £18,000 down and roughly £170,000 of borrowing, the client was looking at purchase prices up to about £190,000, which is around 90% loan to value and sits under the first-time buyer stamp duty threshold. The constraint was borrowing, and that shaped the conversation about area and property type.

The finance agreement counted against affordability while it was running. With a small balance left, the question was whether it was worth clearing from savings without touching the deposit. Some lenders ignore commitments with only a few months to run; others count them in full until they are gone.

The questions that mattered on the first call

Beyond the standard fact-find, the things I needed to know were specific to this kind of income.

Whether the tax return had been filed and the tax paid or set aside. A lender will want the tax year overview, and an unpaid liability shows up on the bank statements.

Whether the client used an accountant. Some lenders want an accountant's projection letter for one-year cases, and if you have filed your own return that is a two-week delay mid-application unless you have engaged one in advance.

How the turnover split across subscriptions, tips, advertising revenue and anything else. Being able to show several revenue streams from one platform is a better answer to the sustainability question than "it's all from one place".

Which payout method the client was on and how the payment showed on the bank statement. This is the one that decides whether the currency issue exists at all.

Whether the part-time income in the earlier years had been declared to HMRC. If it had, there were earlier tax returns showing the same trade at a smaller scale, which is ideal. If it had not, there was a tax position to sort out before applying, not after a lender noticed platform payments predating the self-employment registration date.

Whether the earlier period would be declared to the lender. The answer is yes, and not just because the application asks for employment history. It was the strongest evidence in the case.

The options discussed

One option was to apply now to a lender that accepts one year's figures and take a fixed rate.

Another was to complete on a tracker with no early repayment charge, file the second year's tax return as soon as the tax year ended, and then move to a fixed rate once two full years of accounts opened up more of the market.

The second route is not automatically better. Trackers are not all free of early repayment charges, and the plan only works with one that is. The client would be paying a variable rate for the best part of a year, would pay a second set of fees and a second valuation, and would be relying on the second year's figures being at least as good as the first, because lenders that use two years often average them or take the lower. Since the deposit and loan to value would not have moved much in that time, the gain is purely wider lender choice and whatever pricing difference comes with it. Whether that is worth the cost and the rate exposure depends on how the one-year lenders are pricing at the time, which is a sourcing exercise, not a rule of thumb.

Which route suits a given client depends on their circumstances, how much certainty they need on the monthly payment, and how the market is pricing at the time. Working that out is what the advice appointment is for.

The outcome

The case was placed with a mainstream high street lender, not a specialist. The application went in within 48 hours of the client's first enquiry, which was only possible because the questions above were asked on the first call and the evidence was lined up before the lender was chosen.

What this case shows

Self-employed income from a single online platform is placeable with one year's accounts, but the case has to be built rather than submitted.

The things that made the difference were the part-time period before going full-time, a bank statement that showed sterling payments from a named payer, and having the answers to the currency, accountant and HMRC questions ready before any lender asked them.

This is one case, not a rule. Every application is assessed on its own facts, lender by lender, and your circumstances may produce a different answer. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.