WEBINARS ON DEMAND
BLOGS
UPCOMING EVENTS
ROYAL LONDON
What’s on the menu?
FLEET MORTGAGES
Who are Fleet Mortgages? BTL case studies
JUST
Making it personal
CLYDESDALE BANK
In the spotlight
ROYAL LONDON
Prioritising the protection conversation
HODGE
It’s time we stopped calling it Later Life
TMA Club
The age-old question for brokers
AMI
Looking head in 2022
Face to Face Workshops
Join us for our first series of Face to Face Workshops for 2022! There will be complimentary breakfast rolls upon arrival at 9:30am and plenty of opportunities to network throughout the day.
5th April – The Village Hotel Watford
6th April – The Village Hotel Edinburgh
7th April – The Village Hotel Solihull
Royal London
A changed approach to Coronavirus (COVID-19)
Due to the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and the progress of the vaccination programme, we’ve been able to remove nearly all the remaining underwriting restrictions we put in place in 2019.
This means that we’ve moved back to a pre-pandemic underwriting position for lives under the age of 80 up to a sum assured of £3m. We can also now offer more competitive terms for those aged 80 and over. For certain higher risk cases above £3m, a client’s vaccination status will be either be confirmed from their medical records or by email, so they can also be offered the same breadth of cover.
What else has changed?
We’ve also removed the complexity and restrictions in our application forms in relation to Covid-19. We’ll now only ask if your clients have been treated in hospital for Covid-19 in the last three years.
We’re also now able to shorten our automatic postponement periods for any clients with a history of hospitalisation due to Covid-19.
How will this help your clients?
Our revised approach will help more of your clients to get cover, and it essentially returns us to a pre-pandemic underwriting philosophy. We’ll continue to review the public health information and update our underwriting philosophy as circumstances change.
Please speak to your usual Royal London contact for more information.
Skipton Building Society
The New Build market: How we got here and what comes next
In this week’s Skipton Talks podcast, Rachael is joined by New Build powerhouse, Craig Hall from LSL Property Services. Together, they take a trip down memory lane and remind us all of the key events that have impacted the New Build market since 2008.
And that’s not all – they also discuss the future of the market and what brokers should expect in the next few years.
About Craig Hall
An expert when it comes to the New Build market, Craig Hall is Director of New Home Financial Services at LSL Property Services. Craig has 27 years of financial services experience, having worked for some huge brands such as Barclays, Bradford & Bingley and Legal & General in several senior positions, across Mortgage Intermediaries and New Build.
Homes for Ukraine Scheme
Like so many others, we can only watch on as the humanitarian crisis unfolds in Ukraine. With people leaving their homes, possessions and loved ones behind, we want to do what we can to support victims of the conflict.
We’re making a commitment to our customers wanting to offer space in their homes to refugees as part of the government ‘Homes for Ukraine’ Scheme that we will do what we can to make this happen and where possible we will also open the doors of vacant properties we own to Ukrainian families.
Find out more, including details on the government’s ‘Homes for Ukraine’ scheme here.
POWER OF 8
YOUR INVITATION TO THE ‘POWER OF 8’ EVENT MARCH 2022
Working together to share industry knowledge and expertise
We’re back with a bang with our first live event of 2022!
‘TACKLING COMPLEX CASES WITH CONFIDENCE’
Wednesday 30th March 8:45am – 12:30pm
(REGISTRATION & BREAKFAST BUFFET 8:45AM – 9:30AM, EVENT START 9:30AM)
Vermilion, Hulme Hall Lane, Lord North Street, Sport City, Manchester, M40 8AD – Register Here
In addition to the lender sessions on common sense underwriting and tackling complex cases, the event will also feature guest speakers:
Nicola Firth, a mortgage broker for 13 years with her own brokerage for seven, founded Knowledge Bank in 2016, the UK’s first criteria search system.
Nicola will talk about “Turning Complex into Completed” – You know the scenario; they’re good clients, the case stacks up really well….you’d lend your own money on it if you could….but it just falls outside on a technicality. Find out how Knowledge Bank is helping brokers across the country turn complex cases into completed cases….and saving them hours at the same time!
Simon Lovell, Filed Compliance Manager of TMA Club & Vicki Brady, Customer Account Manager at PRIMIS Mortgage Network.
They will be discussing the good and bad practices they see through file reviews. As well as covering vulnerable customers and the recent FCA Duty of Care paper and what that means for advisers.
TMA is a mortgage club made up of people that are dedicated & passionate about supporting Directly Authorised businesses. PRIMIS provide mortgage and protection advisers with world class support. From training, events and business development to regulatory guidance, technology and a broad product panel.
We look forward to welcoming you to this CPD accredited event!
West one
Remortgaging for Portfolio Landlords
With demand remaining high and rental prices continuing to rise many landlords are looking to expand their portfolio. A remortgage of an existing property is one way in which a landlord may choose to finance the purchase of a new property. However, for a number of high street lenders portfolio landlords can be an uncomfortable risk. Finding a lender that can offer suitable interest cover ratio to maximise the amount of potential borrowing without heavy underwriting on the background portfolio can be a challenge. A specialist lender is more likely to take a pragmatic approach to the risk.
Here at West One our approach to background portfolios is simple. We do not undertake a formal stress test on background portfolios, the property simply needs to be self-financing. No additional verification like E-Tech or EDM are required and there is no cap on the size of the portfolio. We can consider portfolio exposure limit of up to £10m.
At West One, we apply an individual approach to underwriting to ensure we review each case on its own merits, ensuring we support clients with the smooth and secure remortgage they require.
To discuss a case or register as an introducer please get in touch with the West One team here: https://www.westoneloans.co.uk/buy-to-let-mortgages#introducer
Landbay
Green BTL range now includes new builds
Let your landlord clients take advantage of reduced rates for energy-efficient properties with an EPC rating of C or above. We’ve now lowered our Five-year fixed rates, including the new build properties.
To find out more, speak to your local Landbay BDM.
Paymentshield
Remortgage Webinar
To help you reassure every remortgage client, Paymentshield would love you to join them for their new and upcoming webinar taking place on Wednesday 30th March at 2.30pm.
Once registered, you’ll receive an email from BrightTalk to add the event to your choice of calendar so you don’t miss it.
The webinar will be hosted by Sarah Jackson, one of their experienced Regional Sales Managers.
The aim of the session is to help you imagine…
– The possibilities the remortgage opportunity can bring in 2022
– The benefits that come from fulfilling your duty of care to your remortgage clients with a conversation about GI
– Enlightening your clients about the risk of underinsurance
– How easy it might be to have a conversation about GI using our selection of tools and resources
If this sounds like your cup of tea you can register by clicking the button below. They look forward to seeing you soon.
The Mortgage Lender
The Lowdown on Complex Incomes
With our new streamlined residential range, it’s now easier than ever to secure a mortgage for customers with unique income streams.
So, people who won’t be boxed in are now easier to place, and you can match them with the right product at competitive rates.
When it comes to Complex Incomes, did you know:
- We consider multiple incomes, including second jobs
- We consider overtime, employment bonus, car allowance and commission for affordability
- 50% of rental income is considered
- We use 100% of evidenced overtime/bonus/commission
- Aside from our RL0 product range, we will not use credit scores to determine the product rate
Discover our next generation residential range today – https://themortgagelender.com/residential
Kent Reliance for Intermediaries
How could you help your clients with multiple sources of income?
With more than a million people in the UK with second jobs¹, people’s working habits and sources of income have never been so varied.
So if you’re struggling to place a case with a lender who can’t accommodate clients with multiple sources of income, our handcrafted approach to underwriting could help you to secure the residential mortgage they need.
A handcrafted approach to underwriting could help you secure the residential mortgage your clients need
At Kent Reliance for Intermediaries, we understand that your clients’ finances are becoming increasingly complex. We can accept 100% of a second income that’s sustainable and held for a minimum of 12 months (hours worked should not be excessive).
For full details, take a look at our residential criteria guide.
Speak to your business development manager to find out more about how we could support you and your self-employed or contractor clients. Alternatively, you can call our broker liaison team on 01634 835791, or contact them via Live Chat.
Sources:
¹https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/ycbw
Market Harborough Building Society
High net worth bridging solutions
Experienced bridging lender, Market Harborough Building Society (MHBS), has launched a range of bridging solutions tailored to high net worth (HNW) clients. Complementing the Society’s existing bridging range, the new products offer a higher LTV of up to 70% and a five-year term of rolled-up interest. Lending up to £5m, MHBS offers products for simple and more complex cases.
Dual representation and AVMs are available, along with the ability to structure fees and/or rates to suit individual client needs. For a swift turnaround, the Society offers a same-day ESIS for simple bridging cases and a next-day ESIS if the case is more complex.
The dedicated bridging team at MHBS is on hand to chat through individual cases. Please call 01858 412345 to get in touch. Further information about the new HNW bridging solutions can be found on the MHBS for Intermediaries website: https://mhbs.co.uk/intermediaries/products/hnw-bridging-solutions/
*Rates are approximate. Interest is charged daily. Pricing is tailored to clients’ individual circumstances.
Pure retirement
Help Your Customers Reach Their Retirement Goals
Compare our range of innovative lifetime mortgages, from flexible pricing to ERC-free partial repayments, high LTVS to downsizing protection, our products will help you support your client’s retirement goals.
Flexible Pricing
Our Emerald, Classic and Sovereign plans offer flexible pricing, giving up to 500 pricing points, to tailor to your client needs. Get the best quote for your customer by entering a defined borrowing amount rather than the maximum when sourcing rates.
Click here to find out more about our Product Solutions
Product Calculators
Some of our products allow up to 40% of the loan to be repaid erc free per annum, try our calculators to illustrate the benefit regular or ad-hoc payments could have on a client’s loan balance and future equity.
Click here to use our calculators
Criteria Search
If you have a tricky case, then try our lending criteria search, as it allows you to browse our products by criteria to find the perfect solution for your customers.
Click here to use our criteria search
Dedicated Teams Committed to Supporting You and Your Customers
Our Business Development Managers and Telephone Business Development Managers are on-hand to provide you with personalised support in finding the right lifetime mortgage solution for your client.
You also get a dedicated Underwriter with Pure Lifetime Mortgages, who will be able to help with applications that don’t meet our standard lending criteria.
Click here to find your local BDM
Click here to find out more about our Customer Account Servicing team
LifeQuote
Protection at the core
We are now in the lead up to the new tax year (Tuesday 5 April) and clients are being reminded about the opportunity to invest in tax efficient ISAs and pension wrappers.
We know it is important to curate wealth, but it is equally just as important to protect the people bringing that wealth into the household. Protection should be a core part of your client’s financial plan.
Top 3 things to consider:
1. Your client being able to keep paying bills
Income protection pays out a monthly replacement income if they are unable to work due to illness or injury.
2. Protecting your client’s dependent’s home and lifestyle
Life insurance and critical illness cover is key if your client has a mortgage and dependants who live with them. This cover should ensure your client’s family can keep their home if your client’s diagnosed with a critical illness or dies, providing an additional financial cushion at such a difficult time
- Sufficient savings to manage financially
Ensuring your client has considered putting any disposable income aside to help their dependents cope through a tough time.
LifeQuote supporting your client’s financial future
We understand the time constraints around this time of year and processing such complex protection cases is both hard work and time consuming. That’s why we are here to process your client’s protection cases for you and help you ensure they have safeguarded their financial future.
If you are busy in the next few weeks, use LifeQuote’s administration service to save you time so you can help more clients.
Get started
For more information on how LifeQuote can efficiently process the applications on your behalf, please contact our sales support team on 01243 791199 opt 3 or email salessupport@lifequote.co.uk.
Guardian
Halo mini series podcast
Welcome to the first of a 4-part mini-series featuring Guardian and its HALO partners.
HALO is Guardian’s bespoke claims service, and these podcasts help bring to life the huge value the service provides to our customers.
Every Tuesday over the next 4 weeks a new podcast will be released, to listen to their podcast’s click here.
Podcast 1 :
Phil introduces the thinking behind the protection challenger’s HALO service. He tells us how a claim is so much more than a payout and shares examples of how Guardian has been able to help customers at claim.
In the first podcast of this mini-series, Guardian’s Head of Claims, Phil Deacon, introduces us to HALO and the thinking behind the approach. He shares examples of how we’ve helped our customers; as well as what advisers can expect their clients to receive from Guardian if they need to make a claim.
Buckinghamshire Building S0ciety
Case Study 1 – Family Assist
Nick and Kate are a young married couple who live in Devon with their two young children. Nick is a teacher and Kate works as a receptionist at a local hotel. They have been living with Kate’s parents for the last year to help them save a deposit for a home of their own. They have found a place they would love to buy to get a home of their own as a family.
| House Price | 260,000 |
| Deposit | 10,000 |
| Loan Required | 250,000 |
| Loan to Value (LTV) | 96.15% |
| Joint Income | 42,000 |
| Income Multiple | 5.95 |
Whilst the applicants can afford the mortgage in their own right they were having trouble finding a lender at such a high income multiple and loan to value.
By adding Kate’s parents to the mortgage as guarantors and using the equity in their house, they have been able to secure a mortgage on the home of their dreams. A fixed charge of £52,500 on the parents’ home reduces the LTV to 80% and enables the underwriter to consider the merits of the case. Even though they need to borrow nearly 6 times their joint income, the borrowers have a clean credit history and take a sensible approach to their lifestyle that demonstrates the loan is affordable and they have incomes that are likely to increase in the future.
At Buckinghamshire Building Society we:
- Manually underwrite, looking at each case individually
- Assess cases on affordability not income multiples
- Go above and beyond to find a solution to your cases
Vantage Finance
Financing EPC upgrades for your BTL clients
Are you aware of the proposed EPC changes for rental properties?
Currently, rental properties are required to have an EPC rating of ‘E’ or above, however, from 2025 this is set to change.
- New tenancies will be required to have a valid EPC rating of ‘C’ or above from April 2025.
- Existing tenancies will be required to have a valid EPC rating of ‘C’ or above from April 2028.
While there are some properties that are exempt from these changes, a large percentage of landlords will need to begin planning the required upgrades to their rental properties. On average the cost of updating a property from an EPC rating of ‘D’ to a ‘C’ is £6,155, meaning your buy-to-let clients – particularly those with large portfolios – may need advice on the ways they can finance the improvements.
How Vantage can help?
There are a number of options to consider when raising funds to cover the work including Second Charge Mortgages, Bridging Loans and Buy-to-Let Mortgages. The right option will be completely dependent on your clients’ circumstances however the team at Vantage are poised ready to discuss options using our wealth of experience and broad market knowledge.
Contact the team to discuss your clients’ options in more detail:
T: 01753 883195
E: enquiries@vantagefinance.co.uk
W: https://www.vantagefinance.co.uk/contact-us
Lendinvest
View from BDMs: what they are seeing in the Limited Company and long-term BTL markets
Our expert BDMs look in-depth at their regions to see what patterns are emerging in the long-term and Ltd Company Buy-to-Let markets, what feedback they are getting from brokers and how landlords are looking to manage the uncertainty of the year ahead.
Mansfield Building Society
Case Study: leaving the rental treadmill with Family Assist
Our Family Assist mortgages allow us to lend at 100% loan to value (LTV) when security as property equity or cash savings* is provided by a close family member.
In this case study we helped a sole applicant get off the rental treadmill with help from the Bank of Mum and Dad when they provided property equity as security for the mortgage.
The applicant was looking to purchase a mid-terraced property priced at £73,000 and, as there was no cash deposit, the loan amount would be the same.
Mum and Dad were living in a property valued at £160,000 and had around £100,000 left outstanding on their mortgage. With about £60,000 equity in their property, they were therefore able to offer the 20% security (£14,600) for their son’s loan amount.
With the parents agreeing to us taking a legal charge over a proportion of their equity, we were able to offer their son a mortgage at 100% loan to value (LTV) taken out over a 30 year term.
The son, who had been paying £390 per month on renting, was able to transfer his monthly repayments towards a property he owns without having to raise a cash deposit, allowing him to use any savings for refurbishing and setting himself up in his new home.
More about using a parent’s house or savings as a deposit
When using collateral security (i.e. savings or property equity), we will hold the collateral for 7 years from the start of the mortgage with release subject to conditions within an Agreement (for example, all mortgage payments must be up to date with the purchased property).
Where property equity is chosen, family members must take independent legal advice before the borrower is committed to the purchase.
A common sense approach
If you’ve got a case on your desk that requires a common sense approach to lending then please pick up the phone to our Broker Support team on 01623 676360 or visit https://www.mansfieldbs.co.uk/intermediaries/.
*Using deposited cash savings as security with Family Assist is available on properties located in England and Wales. The use of property equity as security is available on properties in England, Wales and Scotland.
Impact Specialist Finance
Confronting the EPC challenge
Part One: How big is the problem?
Most common house type: Regional view
The most common house type across the UK was built between the 1950s and 1990s. These properties were the most common in eight out of the twelve regions in the UK, including the South East and the East of England. By comparison, properties built since the 2000s were most common in London and the West Midlands, and those built in the 1940s or before were found to be in Northern Ireland and the North East of England.
Part Two: The knowledge gap
With the proposed legislative changes expected to have a significant impact on all corners of the property market, a lack of awareness from landlords will prove challenging for the wider industry in the short and medium term. One in seven (15%) private landlords admit that they are unaware of the proposed EPC changes and 2025 deadline. Moreover, a quarter (26%) of landlords said they had little to no knowledge of the changes, with long- term landlords – those who have been renting out properties for more than 10 years – the least likely to know details around the change.
Part Three: The cost of the challenge
Landlords who are required to make improvements to their property estimate it will cost £5,900, on average. However, amid the surge in the cost of both labour and materials alongside an expected spike in demand as other landlords update their properties at the same time, this figure could be largely under-estimated.
Part Four: Implications for the wider market
The changes to EPC rules could have an impact on tenants as landlords consider how to fund the improvements. Some might see their rent rise as landlords contemplate passing on the cost of improving their properties’ energy efficiency rating directly onto their tenants.
More than half of landlords said they will pass at least some of the costs onto their tenant, with fewer than a quarter (23%) saying they would not pass the cost on at all.
