I will be writing for their exact reasoning, as I have got this far and have nothing to lose now!

Just an update on this, following a long winded complaint letter to Erudio, they have today replied upholding part of the complaint, they say they agree with me on most of it, but not all, but they do not go into specifics. They blame 'human error' for incorrectly calculating the gross monthly income. Upshot is that wife is getting the deferment backdated to November, a refund for the payments that have been taken since, and £100 'in recognition of the inconvenience and additional costs our actions have caused you'. However, my cynical self thinks that they will not have learnt anything of this episode, and continue to apply their crooked methodology on other borrowers in future.

I too would be interested to find out if they can go with the top line, rather than the bottom line figure for self employed. My wife lets her old house at £375, but after mortgage interest, commission, insurance and general expenses, all the allowable expenses for tax purposes, the average monthly profit that the tax was paid on was £131.83. By doing this, it has tipped her monthly earnings over the deferment threshold. In addition they have apportioned the full child benefit payment of £136.20 to her monthly earnings, rather than 50%. I will probably be getting my deferment application form through in the next few months, which I really am not looking forward to - I am a partner in a small business with an annual turnover of approx £200,000. Our profit is approx £50,000, my share being £25,000, which I pay my tax on. If they apply the same logic as they have done to my wife's and the OP's application, then they will take my income as £100,000, paying absolutely no regard to the fact that wages, rates and a whole host of other expenses need to be taken out of the equation.......