Missing payments on everyday utilities can severely damage an individual's chances of securing a mortgage, according to a warning delivered at the inaugural Landlord Summit at Herdmanston Lodge. Real estate investor Gregory Shaw told aspiring landlords that lapses many would consider minor, such as late water, electricity or telephone bills, can carry consequences that extend well beyond the original debt.

Shaw compared a bank's lending decision to an individual choosing whether to lend money to a stranger. A person asked to hand over a large sum would want proof that the borrower could be trusted to repay it. Banks operate on the same principle, he said, and that trust is established through a visible history of financial behaviour rather than a verbal assurance. Depositing savings into an account, for example, builds a record that a lender can examine. Cash kept outside the banking system, by contrast, leaves no trail and does nothing to support an application.

The warning on household bills formed the central part of Shaw's address. He described a client who was refused financing specifically because of a pattern of late utility payments. The sums involved were modest, but the pattern itself proved damaging. Lenders read the routine mishandling of small debts as a signal about how an applicant might handle a much larger one. A missed water bill on its own may seem trivial. Repeated across months, it becomes evidence that feeds directly into a credit profile and shapes how an institution assesses risk.

Shaw set out a timeline for those hoping to avoid this outcome, suggesting that financial habits should change at least a year before a person approaches a lender. He identified several elements as central to being what he termed mortgage ready.

A consistent and verifiable savings habit sits at the centre of this preparation. Regular deposits, tracked over time, give a lender something concrete to assess. Alongside this, Shaw advised cutting discretionary spending, arguing that money spent on non-essentials in the months before an application does little beyond weakening the case a buyer is trying to build.

A sufficient deposit remains necessary too. Shaw pointed to 10 per cent as a reasonable benchmark, though he was careful to note that exact requirements vary between lenders and no single figure applies universally. Beyond the deposit itself, applicants need to show that existing debts and any future obligations can be managed without strain. A lender wants reassurance that a mortgage payment will not be the first commitment an applicant struggles to meet.

Shaw's advice draws on his own experience. He described a period of significant personal debt before he built what is now a portfolio spanning multiple properties, and said the discipline he now recommends to others grew out of necessity rather than theory. His approach to cutting luxuries and entertainment spending was, by his own account, extreme at the time. He has continued to apply it since, on the reasoning that money spent on non-essentials is money that could otherwise go toward property investment.

That philosophy ran through much of his address at Herdmanston Lodge. The specifics he offered, on savings habits, deposit size and bill payment, were framed less as isolated tips than as parts of a single argument: that a mortgage application is assessed on the pattern of behaviour behind it, not the moment it is submitted. For those in the audience considering their first purchase, the message was that the preparation matters as much as the application itself, and that it needs to begin long before a lender is ever approached.

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