Inform 26th August 2022

Over the last few months Craig Hall, Director, New Homes Financial Services, LSL Financial Services has hosted a number of webinars about some of the schemes coming to/or on the market for the new build space. The new homes market is moving quickly, and properties of this type are in great demand, there are multiple changes and initiatives that are available to prospective buyers. Below are links to recordings of the past three  and details of future ones.

Recordings of all previous New Homes virtual events:

Own New
Recording
Passcode: aM^4@YvM

Deposit Unlock
Recording
Passcode: %6k?mM60

First Homes Scheme
Recording
Passcode: F^f8T9gd

AUTUMN LSL NEW HOMES FORUM

Like the reassurance of carrying a brolly in case of rain, Umbrella Benefits delivers additional cover and services that keeps on working for your clients behind the scenes, ready to help with the unexpected. And because we know everyone’s lives and needs are different, personalisation is key to the package

• Wellbeing Support– Personalised emotional and practical support from a dedicated registered nurse provided by RedArc Assured Ltd. Included as standard on our personal protection policies
• Fracture Cover – added from policy outset, covers multiple claims per year for specified injuries, with a maximum payout of £7,500. Available for an additional £5.90 a month.
• Private Diagnostics*** – added from policy outset, Private Diagnostics gives your clients access to some of the UK’s top consultants when referred to see a cancer, cardiology, or neurological specialist to investigate symptoms. Available for an additional £4.50 a month.
• Rehabilitation Support Service** – Access to our in-house team of healthcare professionals as soon as a valid claim is made, who provide back to work support for mental and physical health. Included as standard with our income protection policies.

Find out more.

*sales of Income Protection to L&G 2021 vs 2020

**included with our income protection policy
***Insured by AXIS Specialty Europe SE. The support and services are provided by Trustedoctor, a sister company of Further Underwriting International SLU

If customers are thinking about making energy-saving improvements to their home, they might be considering using savings or borrowing a little extra to pay for them.

Halifax has partnered with the Energy Saving Trust to develop a Home Energy Saving Tool which helps identify the types of energy efficient improvements they could make to help the environment, from better insulation to solar panels. It shows how much these improvements might cost, how this could improve their Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating, how much this could reduce their energy bills and how much money they could save in the long term.

By answering a few simple questions about a property, the tool provides a personalised action plan with estimates of the EPC rating, energy costs and CO2 emissions. You can answer as many or as few of the questions as you like but the more questions you answer about the property the more accurate and defined the action plan and estimated EPC will be. There’s guidance provided for each question.

The tool can be found on the Halifax Intermediaries website here, or by going to the Tools and calculators page. The tool is designed so you can use this in conversation with your customers, but you can also send them this link to use the tool themselves and the customer can retrieve a saved action plan here.

Anyone can use the tool so why not familiarise yourself and see how easy it is to use by producing an action plan for your own home.

The UK government has committed to making the UK carbon neutral by 2050. This means that for all CO2 produced in the UK each year, the same amount will be cancelled out by energy saving measures. With homes making up 20% of the UK’s total carbon emissions* and low customer awareness, we all have a part to play in reaching these targets.

*You can view the 2021 UK greenhouse gas emissions, provisional figures here.

As the BTL conversation has been dominated by rates for the last few months, LendInvest takes a closer look at service and how focusing on that can reward brokers.

It is an understatement to say there have been some changes in the Buy-to-Let market these last few months as lenders have adjusted to the changing market conditions.

It is no secret that we went early with price rises across our products so we could best offer brokers sustainable Buy-to-Let service.

As the market caught up with us, and other lenders have faced the challenges of having to pause or withdraw products from the market entirely, we’ve been able to keep delivering deals for brokers while focussing on improving service so in a time full of changes, you can rely on us to do your deal and get it done quickly.

Find out more here.

With the FCA having recently released new rules and guidance on Consumer Duty, now might be a fitting time to complete the 2022 version of Consumer Vulnerability in Later Life, produced by Just and SOLLA. Designed for those working with older and vulnerable clients, it takes around an hour to complete and if done so successfully will earn you CPD. You’ll cover:

• What constitutes vulnerability
• How to identify when someone may be vulnerable
• How to change working practices to ensure firms deliver extra care and support for clients when it is needed.

Find the training module here.

If you’re heading off on holiday, Bank of Ireland for Intermediaries’ top tip is to ensure your case administrators can access your cases on Rome, their online system, while you’re away. You can do this by adding them to your Rome profile.

Your case administrators will need to have registered with Bank of Ireland for Intermediaries for you to be able to add them.

If they’re not ‘linked’ to you, they’re unable to discuss any of your cases with them in your absence.

Please follow these steps to add your case administrators to your profile:

1. Log into your Bank of Ireland for Intermediaries profile
2. Scroll down the page to the ‘Case Permissions’ section and click on the V
3. Click ‘Add Case Administrator’ – this should open a list of registered administrators that you can add to your profile
4. Add the case administrator(s) that you wish to have access and confirm the level of access rights you wish to give. The options are ‘full’ or ‘post-submission’
5. Save your changes

If you can’t see the case administrator/administrators you want to link, please contact your Bank of Ireland BDM who can check we’ve granted all the necessary permissions.

When it comes to protection, the first thing clients think of is life insurance. However, dying isn’t their biggest risk, illness is.

That’s why we’ve created the income risk calculator.

By entering a few basic details about your client, you can create a personalised report containing a series of calculations, all of which are designed to help you make a compelling case for income protection.

Find out more.

Over the last couple of years, some interesting shifts in the mortgage market and buyer behaviour have occurred. Recently, home buyers have been moving towards long term fixed-rate mortgages.

We’ve pulled together some actionable tips to help build better, lasting relationships with clients.

Read on to find out more…

United Kingdom, 24^th August 2022 – Watts Commercial Finance has further expanded their team, appointing Gavin Jesse as Commercial Manager.

Gavin joins the team from HSBC where he spent almost 12 years working his way through the ranks with the last 6 years as Business Banking Relationship Manager – helping hundreds of small to medium sized business and corporate across North Wales to realise their business ambitions.

Gavin now joins Watts Commercial Finance to support their ever-growing client base in North Wales and Chester across all aspects of commercial funding.

Commenting on the announcement, Phil Gray, Managing Director of Watts Commercial Finance said: “As we enter another period of growth, I am delighted to welcome Gavin to the team.

Gavin has a wealth of experience and his appointment is another huge step in our business growth plans as we continue to support a thriving region while supporting the increasing demands from our clients across North Wales and Chester.”

Gavin Jesse, Commercial Manager added: “I am excited to be joining Watts Commercial Finance who are an already prominent brokerage in the region and I look forward to servicing both their existing client base as well as growing the region through my own network.

I am really looking forward to offering a full spectrum of finance solutions to SME’s and corporate clients across the region.”

Improvements to our portal are planned this weekend.

From 6pm Friday through to 1pm Saturday, our portal will be unavailable while improvements are put in place.

Pure Retirement apologise for any inconvenience this may cause they are here to support you as always.

Want to get ahead of the social game and start utilising Facebook for paid advertising? Facebook provides one of the largest and most widespread audiences for digital advertising.

And with 2.8 billion monthly users, it’s not unreasonable to believe that at least some of these could need a mortgage broker.

By harnessing its ability to target specific audiences, Facebook could help you show ads promoting your services towards potential homebuyers, remortgagers and renters. Put simply, it can help raise awareness of your business to would-be clients by promoting your page and improving your online presence.

It can also help:

• Direct customers to your website
• Generate leads
• Monitor the behaviour of your target audience

Ready to get started?

Read our latest blog for the ultimate guide to getting started with Facebook advertising and setting up your first ad campaign.

Read the guide.

A combination of factors impacting landlords, the private rental sector and the buy-to-let market have recently been influencing activity levels, specifically remortgage business. 2022 kicked off with many suggesting the subsequent 12 months would be the ‘year of the remortgage’ and while purchasing has clearly held its own, as we move through the current environment – with Base Rate rises, increased inflation, and the like – that definition appears to be solidifying.

Read the full story here.

As of 31 August, we will be increasing the interest rates on our lifetime mortgages (Lump Sum+ and Drawdown+).

Any quotes you wish to obtain on our current lower rates should be produced via the Equity Release Portal no later than 4pm 30 August. The Portal will be unavailable from 4.30pm 30 August to allow us to update our rates.

Decisions in principle on our previous lower rates should be submitted for underwriting review no later than midday 12 September, with the deadline for full submission of applications being midday 13 September.

Please note that these deadlines only apply to new business and additional borrowing applications are on the prevailing rate.

Submit and track business via the LV= Equity Release Portal.

With immediate effect, we are increasing the mortgage product switch window from 90 days to 120 days.

Product switch criteria reminder
All existing HSBC UK mortgage customers who are on a Fixed Rate, Term Tracker, Lifetime Tracker or SVR are eligible to switch, with the following exceptions:

• The mortgage account is in arrears
• There is a consent to let in place
• A product switch application is already in progress (via Intermediary or our Direct channel)
• They have more than six loan parts
• There are more than two applicants
• There are any additional changes to the mortgage (e.g. change of term, repayment type etc.)
• They have less than two mortgage payments left

Product switch additional information

• We will pay a Procuration Fee
• Request your customer’s mortgage sort code and account number via our

Broker Helpdesk

• Your customer can select their preferred product transfer date
• Your customer can exit their current mortgage deal early, subject to any Early Repayment Charges (the customer would need to call our Helpdesk to pay these)
• If you are instructed to accept the Offer on your customer’s behalf, you are required to do this via the broker platform
• You can also process an additional borrowing application simultaneously with a product switch (one product fee* is payable providing the chosen rate is the same for both the product switch and additional borrowing applications)

* If you are processing additional borrowing simultaneously with a product switch, the 2 product fees will need to be paid and we will then refund one to the customer. Please note, in these situations you must contact our Broker Helpdesk on upload of the applications to arrange for the applicable refund.

Need any help?
If you have any queries regarding our product switch process you can ‘Chat with us‘ or call our Broker Support Team on 0345 600 5847 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm).