When the answer isn't straightforward.

"Complex" usually means "ordinary, but not on their form"

Nobody thinks of themselves as a complex case. They think of themselves as a person with a job and a deposit who keeps getting odd answers.

The word gets used whenever a situation does not fit the boxes on a high street application. The boxes were drawn around a salaried employee, in a conventional house, with a clean file and a UK passport. Fall outside any of those and the automated system shrugs.

That shrug is not a verdict on you. It is a form reaching the end of its instructions.

What tends to put a case outside the boxes

The income. Self-employment, company directorship, day rates, several part-time roles, commission, bonus, overseas earnings, pensions and investments, or maternity or paternity leave right now.

The property. Flats above commercial premises, high-rise, timber frame, concrete construction, thatched roofs, listed buildings, annexes, land attached, short leases, or somewhere with no kitchen until the work is finished.

The borrower. Older applicants, younger applicants with a gifted deposit, people with a visa rather than a UK passport, people recently returned from abroad, or people buying with someone who lives overseas.

The history. Adverse credit, a recent change of job, a gap in employment, or a business that had one bad year.

The structure. Buying through a company, buying with four people, buying a property your family will live in, or a mix of residential and commercial use.

Most people who end up on this page tick one or two. Very few tick none, which is roughly the point: the standard box is narrower than the population it is meant to serve.

What actually happens with a case like this

The difference is usually hand underwriting. Instead of a system scoring an application in seconds, a person reads the file, asks questions and forms a view.

That means three things:

1. The order matters. Approaching lenders in the right order, based on criteria rather than hope, avoids a trail of searches.

2. The presentation matters. A case explained properly, with the awkward parts addressed up front rather than discovered at underwriting, gets a fairer hearing.

3. It takes longer. Not dramatically, but a human reading a file is slower than a computer declining one.

What I will not tell you is that there is always a lender. Sometimes the honest answer is "not yet, and here is what would change that". I would rather say that in week one than in week six.

The order to do things in

First, work out what the actual obstacle is. Income, property, history or structure. People often assume it is their credit file when it is the building, or the building when it is the income.

Second, check the facts. Your credit file across all three agencies, your accounts, the lease length, the construction type. Guesswork at this stage causes most of the problems later.

Third, match the case to criteria before anybody applies to anything.

Fourth, apply once, properly. Multiple applications in quick succession leave multiple searches and make the next lender more cautious, which is the exact opposite of what a difficult case needs.

If your case is mainly about income, start with self-employed mortgages or business owners and directors. If it is about size or complexity of wealth, high net worth and complex income. If it is about credit history, bad credit mortgages.

Things that are less of a problem than people fear

• Being self-employed. Common, and well provided for by plenty of lenders.
• A default from four years ago. Age matters more than existence.
• A short gap in employment. Explainable, particularly with a return to the same field.
• A non-standard property. Narrows the field rather than closing it.
• A gifted deposit. Entirely normal, as long as the paperwork is right.

Things that are more of a problem than people think

• Applying everywhere at once. The single most damaging thing a borrower can do unaided.
• A very short lease. This can stop a purchase before anything else is considered.
• Undisclosed borrowing. It will be found, and finding it late is worse than knowing it early.
• Buying at auction without checking lending first. Completion deadlines do not care how unusual the property is.
• Hoping nobody asks. They always ask.

What I need from you

The full picture, including the parts you would rather gloss over. I am not easily surprised and I am not there to judge your last five years. I am there to work out which lenders' criteria your actual circumstances fit, and I cannot do that from an edited version.

Twenty minutes on the phone usually tells us both whether this is straightforward, awkward, or genuinely difficult. All three are useful answers.