Buying your first home with an Islamic mortgage
Yes. Gatehouse Bank, StrideUp and Offa publish no separate eligibility rule or pricing tier for first-time buyers. Your deposit, residency, property type and location, and the finance amount decide the fit. The lowest published deposit is 5%, from Gatehouse Bank and Offa, on different conditions.
How to read this page
- It covers the three mainstream providers open to UK residents. "No first-time-buyer rule" is a statement about the records we hold, not the whole market.
- Passing published criteria is not an affordability decision. Providers assess income, commitments and credit history separately.
- We do not name a best provider, and we do not give religious opinions on accounts or schemes.
Being a first-time buyer is not the thing that decides it
A lot of what is written about an Islamic mortgage for a first time buyer implies a separate market exists. In the records we track it does not: providers market existing products to first-time buyers, and the deciding criteria are the ones everyone meets. What is genuinely different is that you have no equity from a previous property, so every pound of deposit and fees comes from savings, from family, or from a discount on the price.
How much deposit you need
The lowest published figure is 5%, from Gatehouse Bank and Offa, and the conditions differ between them.
Across 6 like-for-like fixed-product families, the largest pricing step is from a 20% deposit to a 10% one. The initial rental rate rises by 0.6 to 0.8 percentage points, and the product fee rises, £0 to £999 and £499 to £999. If extra savings can move you from the 90% tier to the 80% tier, that is where they buy the most.
Minimum finance amounts can rule out a small finance amount, including a large deposit on an expensive property: StrideUp £50,000, Offa £60,000 and Gatehouse Bank £75,000.
Every published deposit tier, with its conditions, and the full measurement ›
Work out what your deposit gets you, month by month
Where your deposit can come from
Three routes, and they are not the same thing.
- Your own savings
- HMRC's rules explicitly allow a Lifetime ISA to be used to acquire a legal interest under a regulated home purchase plan. Conditions include a price of £450,000 or less, 12 months since your first payment in, and the money going straight to your conveyancer. GOV.UK, read . The joint-buyer test differs from stamp duty's. You can use a Lifetime ISA buying with someone who has owned before, but that same person costs you first-time buyer stamp duty relief. HMRC guidance.
- Gifted cash
- Someone else provides the deposit, at the same percentage of the price. StrideUp's intermediary criteria accept a 100% gifted deposit from any number of sources, and can consider gifts from outside close family. Source, read .
- Gifted equity, buying from family below market value
- No cash deposit from you, because the discount stands in for it. Gatehouse removed the personal-funds minimum for these cases on , up to 75% finance-to-value: a £300,000 home bought from parents for £225,000 is financed in full, the £75,000 difference treated as gifted equity, subject to a surveyor confirming market value. Source. Offa publishes a comparable route with no deposit needed. Source.
What none of this is
Finance for the full value with nothing behind it. The equity is still there, arriving as a discount rather than cash, which is why Gatehouse caps the route at 75% of market value.
The cash you need beyond the deposit
The part first-time buyers underestimate. Some of these are published and some genuinely vary, so we do not invent a total that would be wrong for most readers.
| Cost | What we can tell you | State |
|---|---|---|
| Application fee | £149 where published, and Gatehouse states its application fee is payable on submission and non-refundable. Fee types and timings differ: StrideUp's first-time-buyer page takes the product fee and then the valuation fee at the application stage, while its tariff list (1 July 2026) says the product fee is paid when you accept the offer. | Published |
| Product fee | £0, £499, £999 and £1,249 across the UK-resident products we hold. Gatehouse states fees cannot be added to the finance amount and that the product fee is deducted from the finance at completion. | Published |
| Valuation | Charged by some providers, at different points. StrideUp publishes that it is taken at the application stage; amounts are not published consistently across the three. | Varies |
| Legal and conveyancing | The arrangement differs materially by provider, and so does the bill. Offa states that one solicitor represents both your interests and its own. StrideUp states that you and StrideUp each have your own solicitor, and that the cost of both is paid by you. Ask for the provider’s legal requirements before relying on a generic conveyancing quote. | Varies |
| Property tax | Stamp duty in England and Northern Ireland, Land Transaction Tax in Wales, Land and Buildings Transaction Tax in Scotland. Set out below, and the relief you can claim depends on where you buy. | Rules published |
| Survey | Optional, and separate from the provider valuation, which is carried out for the provider rather than for you. | Varies |
Do you pay stamp duty twice with an Islamic mortgage?
Normally not. The provider acquiring the property looks like a second taxable transaction, but HMRC's relief for alternative property finance means the tax is in line with what a conventional mortgage purchase would pay. Your conveyancer should make sure the relief is claimed. HMRC, SDLTM28005, read .
What you pay, and where
The tax follows the purchase, so it depends on where you buy. Only two of the three regimes have a first-time buyer relief.
| Where you buy | Tax | First-time buyer position |
|---|---|---|
| England and Northern Ireland | Stamp Duty Land Tax | First-time buyer relief: nothing to £300,000, 5% on the portion from £300,001 to £500,000, and no relief at all above £500,000. |
| Wales | Land Transaction Tax | No first-time buyer relief. The main residential rates start at 0% up to £225,000. |
| Scotland | Land and Buildings Transaction Tax | First-time buyer relief raises the nil-rate band from £145,000 to £175,000, worth up to £600. |
Stamp duty a first-time buyer pays, by price
The tax sources
What the headline misses
Never having had a mortgage does not make you a first-time buyer for tax. In England and Northern Ireland everyone buying must qualify, the price must be £500,000 or less, and it must be your main residence. If one joint buyer has owned before, neither gets the relief. GOV.UK guidance.
From starting out to getting the keys
Four milestones. The order and fee points vary by provider.
- Check the criteria, then get a decision in principle. Provisional, not an offer. The result can change once documents, credit checks, the property valuation and the rest of the full application are in.
- Full application and valuation. Where money starts leaving your account, at a point that differs by provider.
- Underwriting and offer. Income, credit history, the property and, for leasehold, the remaining lease. You receive an offer document setting out payments and charges.
- Completion. The provider acquires its interest, you acquire yours, and the arrangement starts.
The full seven-stage process, and what the monthly payment is made of ›
Which providers serve first-time buyers
Gatehouse Bank, StrideUp and Offa all publish mainstream UK-resident home purchase plans open to first-time buyers. Which fits changes with the deposit, the property type and the nation, so it is worth answering with your own figures.
Geography decides some of it before anything else does. Gatehouse Bank publishes England and Wales; StrideUp publishes England; Offa publishes England and Wales. If the property is in Scotland or Northern Ireland, none of these three publishes a route for it, and the register lists what else exists.
Check my situation against their criteria Compare what they publish Ask an adviser your question
What catches first-time buyers out
- The minimum deposit is not the cheapest deposit. Qualifying at 5% and paying the price of a 5% product are different things, and the gap between tiers is largest at 80%.
- Some costs are incurred before completion and may not be recoverable. Gatehouse publishes a non-refundable application fee payable on submission. Other providers use different fee types at different points, and StrideUp's own pages disagree on when its product fee is due: at the application stage on its first-time-buyer page, on accepting the offer in its tariff list.
- A decision in principle is not approval. It is provisional, and the answer can change once documents, credit checks and the property valuation come in.
- Property type can lower the ceiling. New-build flats in particular carry lower maximum finance-to-value than houses at the same provider.
- StrideUp's own pages currently disagree. Its consumer material publishes up to 90% finance-to-value for a standard property and its intermediary criteria 85%. We hold both and check against both.
Tell us what the published data could not answer
Everything above comes from what providers publish. Whether a provider will actually take you depends on affordability, credit history and the property itself, and on criteria nobody prints. Tell us what you are stuck on and we will come back to you.
The published deposit tiers are above. Whether you qualify at one of them is assessed on your income and credit history, which nobody publishes.
Common questions
- Can a first-time buyer get an Islamic mortgage?
- Yes. Gatehouse Bank, Offa and StrideUp publish no separate rule or pricing tier for first-time buyers. Your deposit, residency, property type and location, and the finance amount decide the fit.
- What deposit does a first-time buyer need for an Islamic mortgage?
- The lowest published deposit across the mainstream providers is 5%, from Gatehouse Bank and Offa, on different conditions. The largest measured pricing step in our matched product families is from a 20% deposit to a 10% one.
- Can my parents pay my deposit?
- On published criteria, yes in more than one way. StrideUp accepts a deposit that is 100% gifted, from any number of sources. Separately, if you buy a family member’s home below market value, Gatehouse and Offa publish routes where that discount stands in for a cash deposit from you.
- Do first-time buyers pay stamp duty on an Islamic mortgage?
- The tax follows the purchase, not the finance. In England and Northern Ireland, relief means nothing to £300,000 and 5% from £300,001 to £500,000, with no relief above £500,000, and every joint buyer must qualify. Wales has no equivalent; Scotland raises its nil-rate band to £175,000. HMRC relief for alternative property finance means the structure does not create a second charge.
Where to go next
Price the published products on your figures, check which criteria your situation meets, then compare what the providers publish. The calculator prices real products; how much a provider will advance you is an underwriting decision.
Calculate your costs · Check the criteria · Deposit research · Compare providers