Andy Coyle will remember this year with fondness. After years spent working in banking, the 35-year-old decided to retrain for a career in the media. This summer, he gained a first-class degree and landed the job he wanted with a broadcaster. He also plans to marry his fiancée, Michelle, a teacher. He has achieved a great deal, but the one thing he is unlikely to do is buy a new home.
Thanks to moves by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to tighten regulations on mortgage lending, Coyle's attempts to get a mortgage could fall foul of restrictions on lending to those considered "high-risk".
Last month's report by the authority is still at the consultation stage, but its recommendations are already "as good as law", say industry professionals, and are being implemented by lenders.
About 29% of Scotland's population is believed to fall within the "difficult" lending category, which includes entrepreneurs, sole traders, contractors, freelancers and agency staff. The proposals include imposing affordability tests for all mortgages and making lenders responsible for assessing a customer's ability to pay. Self-certification mortgages will disappear and there will be new verification requirements on borrowers' income. Mortgages that include features such as high loan-to-value and high loan-to-income ratios will be banned. The blueprint also requires that all mortgage advisers become personally accountable to the FSA. The report also wants to widen the authority's scope to cover buy-to-let and any lending that is secured for a home.
"With just a few months of a salary after graduation and a contract that is renewed each year, it does seem unlikely I'll be able to contribute much to a mortgage application," says Coyle. "I think that we might have to give up on buying a home of our own until I have at least three years of accounts."
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The FSA proposals reflect its "changed approach to a more intrusive and interventionist style of regulation". Jon Pain, managing director of supervision in the FSA, explains the authority's concerns about "the emergence of high-risk lending strategies which typically focused on higher-risk borrowers; relaxed credit standards; and a mutual assumption by too many borrowers and lenders that the good times could not end."
However, according to Craig Scott, of Regents Estates & Mortgages in Fife, the FSA proposals are likely to cause problems in the market. "They will quickly become requirements, so lenders are implementing the proposals right away. This has led to a rather swift change in the lending environment - though most people won't realise this until contemplate changing their mortgage or taking one out," he says.
"High-street lenders are not desperate to lend in any case, so any adverse item on credit will lead to an application being declined. Clients who ran up credit card bills and so on are left unable to consolidate as they used to; graduates who had bad credit as students, even first-time buyers with too limited a credit history, are all put under the microscope - and found wanting."
A concerned Matthew Wyles , chairman of the Council of Mortgage Lenders ,told the body's annual conference: "Self-certification may have had its day, but some consumers will be worse off as a result. Change is necessary, but plenty of self-certifying borrowers are complicated rather than dishonest, and it is simply wrong to see all as applicants for 'liar loans'. A less blunt approach than an outright ban could still be adopted." Wyles also believes the FSA's "onerous" income-verification requirements may prove costly for consumers. The cost of administering the new measures is likely to be reflected in increased home loan costs.
"I rather doubt that most of those borrowers who found themselves unable to pay their mortgages in the past have ended up there because of an underestimate of their normal spending," says Wyles. "Changes in circumstances, other credit commitments and financial shocks are much more likely to be the causes - and even the best affordability models can't prevent these." He also believes that those demonstrating an ability to pay a mortgage every month are no more secure - even those with good credit could find their applications tossed out for as little as a missed credit card payment, or simply a less flexible view of their disposable income.
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"For borrowers already in the mortgage market who may be paying their mortgages perfectly well, but whose combined risk factors look high, the ability to get a new mortgage will be significantly reduced in the future," says Wyles. "There will be a group of existing borrowers who will be prevented from taking out a new mortgage with a different lender, or possibly even with their existing lender, in the future."
Coyle, meanwhile, is reconciled to staying in his rented apartment near Glasgow cathedral.
"With the job that I have longed for and my wedding to look forward to, I suppose at least I don't have to worry about DIY for a while," he says.