I have a mortgage, on my house, where I am the only borrower. Now I want to re-mortgage and add my wife to the mortgage as she is working now and will contribute to the mortgage. As I want to increase the mortgage amount (we have more than enough equity), failing this we may apply for a loan. I am self-employed and she is on PAYE. My questions:

1- As I need to be self-certified, I have heard that there is a maximum amount of declared earnings, for mortgage and loan purposes, before you have to present a full set of documents proving your income. What is that amount for most lenders?

2- What is the minimum amount of time that they want somebody to be employed (how many PAYE slips need to be shown) before they consider someone for a mortgage/loan?

3- Have mortgage companies started asking how or proving how the mortgage will be paid off as they used to do? My existing lender has not asked for details of how we will re-pay. I have it on interest only. I am aware that we need to work out how to repay the mortgage but we are thinking how to do it carefully. This could be by an unconventional method like investing in property which we would need to tell the lender unless they don't care.

Thanks