Bank loans for self-employed people

It seems near impossible to get loans if you are self employed. Has anyone been down this route? Any suggestions would be most welcome.

What kind of loan? Business starting loan? Home loan? Random loan, what?

A random loan I guess it would be called, or for property outside Germany ( I don't think that would qualify as a home loan here)

Despite their previous mentioning of the possibility of doing so, Stadtsparkasse München / LBS refused to lend me money on a house in Britain. Citibank too. In the end to buy the house I got a mortgage from "my" bank in Britain despite only having a couple of hundred quid with them. So if you want to borrow to buy a house, go to a local bank where you are buying.

The rules for the self-employed are stricter than employees I guess, but if you show them your books, they can see your regular income.

After a 3 month long struggle I can only confirm this. Being self employed is like a disease. They did confirm (email )and gave the goahead (with purchasing the house and signing the notary documents) only to call back. Literly 2 minutes after we signed to say. Oops we made a mistake and are not doing this at all.

I tell yah, German banks...
In case anyone has some better experience do let me know as we can start all over again.

Well I'm self employed and I've had loans for cars, a mortgage, credit for furniture and I lease my cars from the car companies banks. It's not a problem if you can prove that you've got regular income. My first loan for a car was after being here for a couple of years.

I was self-employed for 15 years in Munich and had no problem with loans as long as you can show tax returns that prove you're earning.

Regarding a loan for property outside of Germany. Neither German, Irish or British banks will do that. They need the property as security and will only deal in their own juristictions. What good is it to a German bank having the deeds for a property in Spain? Who's going to organise the forced sale if you default on payments etc. Some British banks advertise they will lend for foreign property but that will always be with a partner bank in the country you are buying in.

Am having problems pinning down a bank that will offer a personal loan.
I am classed self employed, have been for just over 2 years.
Postbank , earlier this year re-classed my personal account as a business account ( requirement of law apparently) and won't offer me becauase i haven't been classed self employed for a period of 3 years ( a recent change ..lucky me!)
HVB wouldn't go for it as i do not have an equal amount saved which i could offer as security against the loan ( yeah i don't get that either!!)

Anyone have any suggestions or success stories as to which bank might help out here?

thanks

Topics merged by admin

If I understand your message correctly, you are looking for two things:
a) a current bank account as business account and
b) a bank loan
right?

A current account should be no problem with most banks unless you want it conected with a credit-line right from the beginning. If you want that you will need to show proof of more or less regular income from your occupation, otherwise chances are slim to get a credit-line right from the beginning. Banks might want to see balance sheets, current acounting and tax notes from the last years if available.

With regards to a loan, same problems apply. You might want to check with Commerzbank, some clients of mine told me that they are more friendly and open to freelancers and self-employed nowadays. Appart from that many freelancers/selfemployed seem to have made good experience with Raiffeisenbanks it would appear. These regional banks do have to the public assignment to support small and medium bussinesses... and sometimes they even do that.

One last thought: did you check your Schufa-records, i.e. that you are clean there? Sometimes things get reported to Schufa that are not correct and might harm you in contacts with banks, therefore you better check that first.

Cheerio