Self-disclosure for the bank: buying a house & apartment – Sparkasse, Volksbank & Co.

Self-disclosure – You want to buy your first apartment or your first house and the bank wants a self-disclosure from you? Learn here what a self-disclosure is, what it says and download a free template as a PDF with which you can convince your bank!

Self-disclosure for banks: Real Estate Financing

Whether Deutsche Bank, Volksbank or Sparkasse, banks need collateral for real estate financing. The more collateral you can offer, the less risk there is for the bank. So that bankers can assess your financial situation, there is the self-disclosure.

A self-disclosure has no fixed form. That means you will find different templates online.

Source: Real Estate Experience.com

What is the self-disclosure?

Self-disclosure lists your personal data, your monthly income and expenses, as well as your assets and debts. Your net worth (income and assets against expenses and liabilities) should be positive. This surplus is your financial leeway for the condominium or your new house.

In our article Buying an apartment, we have already explained the entire process of buying an apartment. Today we want to look again specifically at what must be in a self-disclosure. Because, importantly, once you submit the documents to your bank, everything should be accurate and complete.

Now let’s look at self-disclosure in detail.

What does the self-disclosure say?

• Summary of the financing request in short form
• Personal data of you as applicant, if necessary also of the co-applicant (e.g. your partner)
• Monthly balance sheet: income and expenditure
• Balance sheet: assets and liabilities (liabilities)
• Financing requirements in detail (property, financing structure, loan amount)
• Consent Schufa information
• Consent Data protection

Free Download: PDF and Word Template

Self-disclosure as PDF and Word template:

• Self Disclosure PDF Template
• Self Disclosure Word Template

Self-disclosure: simply explained

How does the self-disclosure, simply explained? Here are the answers!

Summary of the financing request in short form

Step number one is a brief summary of your financing requirements. In the self-disclosure form, you provide the following information:

Personal data of you as applicant, if necessary also with applicant (e.g. your partner)

After the short overview in the first step, the second step is the specification of personal data. Very basic information, name, address, date of birth, marital status, etc. Either by yourself as the applicant or together with a second person, e.g. a partner or a family member, the so-called co-applicant.

Monthly balance sheet: income and expenditure

Step number 3 deals with your monthly income and your monthly expenses. When you compare your monthly income and expenses, there should be a surplus. Or simply put, you earn more than you spend.

This surplus is the margin for your real estate financing, or the later monthly repayment.

This monthly overview is supplemented by your assets.

Income includes:

• Wage / salary (net)
• Recurring monthly variable income
• Income from self-employment
• Pensions and annuities
• Rental income (cold)
• Child benefit
• Maintenance
• Other income

Your expenses include:

• Housing costs; rent or loan and question: Will be eliminated in the future yes / no?
• Health insurance
• Other insurance (pension, building society, life insurance, etc.)
• Cost of living
• Loans
• Leasing
• Liabilities
• Child support obligations
• Other expenditure

Balance sheet: assets and liabilities (liabilities)

In the fourth step you compare your assets and your debts. Your assets include any simple savings account, but also securities and real estate, if you already own any.

Your credits include:

• Bank and savings accounts
• Securities (market value)
• Insurance policies (surrender value)
• Real estate assets
• Building savings balance
• Other assets

Your liabilities (debts) include:

• Bank, instalment and leasing loans
• Guarantees
• Other liabilities

Financing requirements in detail (property, financing structure, loan amount)

Step number 5 in the self-disclosure is a detailed description of your financing requirements. In detail, it is about the property that is to be financed, the financing structure and the amount of the loan.

Read more about it here (external):

• Self-disclosure: Financing

Consent Schufa information

In step number six, you give your consent for Schufa to obtain information about you. If you haven’t heard of Schufa yet, here’s a brief explanation!

What is Schufa? Schufa is a big card, so to speak, that collects information about consumers. This includes personal data, current loans, leasing contracts, as well as the general payment morale and creditworthiness of individual consumers.

Contractual partners can access the databases at any time and thus carry out rapid creditworthiness checks.

So when banks obtain a Schufa report, this is a completely normal process. That’s why you already give your consent in the self-disclosure.

Tip. Once a year you get this self-disclosure free of charge:

• Schufa (external)

Proof of income

In the last step of the self-disclosure, you collect evidence of your income. If you are an employee, you need to provide proof of income, if you are self-employed, you need to provide your tax returns.

Documents for employees:

• Last 3 pay slips
• Wage statement from December, previous year
• Last tax assessment
• If real estate assets, also income tax return
• Copy of identity card
• Schufa self-disclosure

Documents for the self-employed:

• Last 3 tax assessment notices
• Last 3 tax returns / balance sheets
• Ongoing BWA (business management analysis)
• Copy of identity card
• Schufa self-disclosure

Done! Self-disclosure ready for the bank

That’s it. With that you have your self-disclosure for the bank, with your financing request, complete.

Here again the free download of the templates

• Self Disclosure PDF Template
• Self Disclosure Word Template

Buying your first apartment: Here’s how

Buying your own apartment – As soon as you move into your first own apartment, for most people it’s rent, rent, rent. Every month you go to work many hours to spend the largest part ultimately for the next rent due at the beginning of the month. It’s no wonder that many young people are considering buying a condominium as soon as possible.

• Buy first apartment