Inform Friday 29th October 2021

There are some nightmare scenarios when it comes to financing a buy-to-let property that can send shivers down the spine of even the most experienced landlord!  In this Halloween special, we investigate how West One can help property investors avoid being haunted by a lost opportunity…

Nightmare #1 ‘I’m looking to purchase my first buy-to-let property, but I’ve been turned down for finance by the high-street’

As mortgage rates remain low, and rents continue to rise, buy-to-let property remains a popular investment choice. While it is not impossible for a first-time landlord to obtain finance it can be a lot harder, particularly where the situation is more complex such as a multi-unit block or HMO property or even a holiday let scenario.

As a specialist lender, West One, will take a common-sense approach to the application and review each case on its own merits. West One can facilitate a first-time landlord providing they have a residential mortgage in place.

Nightmare #2 ‘I am struggling obtain a buy-to-let mortgage for a property that is above a café’

Many high street lenders are focused on standard residential buy-to-lets, so when there is a commercial dimension to a property a high street lender will find it harder to justify lending due to perceived reduced rental demand and saleability. The main concern will be that the property will not be attractive enough to the rental market, either to deliver the expected rental price or to be consistently rented out…Read the rest of the article in full here.

Discover the opportunities our personal and business protection can offer to help protect more of your clients and help future proof your business.

Learn more here.

The new report allows advisers registered with Pure access to exclusive insight into effective engagement of the over-50s market to help you reach your customers.

Written by Pure Retirement’s Head of Marketing Rachel Pease, in collaboration with the Silver Marketing Association, the report features invaluable insight from 20 experts in their fields. These include Heads of Brand across multiple sectors, specialists in the later life market and successful founders of new start-up brands. The research focuses on three specific areas: the important things to consider when setting up a new brand from scratch, the most effective ways to develop and evolve a brand whilst still retaining customer loyalty, and examining the additional considerations for brands who are wanting to engage the over 50s market.

Download your copy on the Pure Retirement Learning Zone via their Online Portal

This Halloween, we’re calling on The Addams Family in order to help explain our most recent case study.

Wednesday Addams is employed by the NHS as a Project Support Officer and dreams of owning her own home. Her salary of £24,906 is not sufficient to enable her to get the mortgage she needs (£171,024) to purchase her home, therefore her broker approached Buckinghamshire Building Society to see if there was any way we could help Wednesday escape the Addams Family home!

Fortunately, Buckinghamshire BS offers Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor Mortgages. In this case, we could see that Wednesday has a career path that would see her income increase to around £47,000 over the next 5 years, as she works her way up to a Project Management role, which would be enough to support the mortgage in her own right.

In order to do this, her parents would go onto the mortgage as Joint Borrowers until Wednesday’s promotion is secured, but would not be on the Title Deeds (preventing them from paying stamp duty). The parents have a joint income of £60,000 in addition to Wednesday’s income. Having assessed the income and outgoings of all parties, Buckinghamshire BS were more than happy to approve the loan and the term was based on Wednesday’s age, which meant a term of 35 years could be offered.

Wednesday now has her dream home and the rest of The Addams Family are happy that they could help out.

Find full details of our products on our site here, or call our team on 01494 879517.

• Legal charge on main residence
  Where an applicant is using sale of main residence as their repayment vehicle, there must be £400k equity available in any properties based within the M25. This is reduced from a previous requirement of £500k.
• RIO retired status
  Applicants do not need to be retired at the point of application.
• Lending in retirement: life policy for mortgage shortfalls
  For death stress calculations, where a life policy covers the shortfall this will be accepted as proof of the mortgage remaining affordable to the remaining party.
• Employment & income criteria
  Employed applicants will now only be required to provide an up to date P60 and 2 months’ payslips with an application.
• Zero hours employment
  Zero hours contracts within the tourism sector will now be considered as per standard zero hour contracts policy.
• Continuous employment
  A minimum continuous employment history of 12 months will now be accepted.
• Fixed term contractors
  There is no longer a requirement for 2 years employment history. Applicants must have a minimum of 6 months remaining on their current contract.
• One bed flats
  Second time ownership one bed flats will be considered as standard on our residential product range. New build one bed flats are restricted to 85% LTV.

The Marsden have made several changes to their criteria regarding self employed expats, which at present they do not accept.

Their lending policy has now been updated with immediate effect to the following:

Expat Residential

Self employed expats are acceptable subject to the ability to provide 3 years trading history evidenced through financial accounts and an accountant’s reference provided from one of the following acceptable accountancy firms;

• Baker Tilly International
• BDO
• Crowe Horwath International
• Deloitte
• Ernst & Young (EY)
• Grant Thornton International
• HLB International
• KPMG International
• Moore Stephens International
• PKF International
• Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC)
• RSM International
• UHY International

Expat Buy to Let

• Self-employed applicants are subject to underwriting discretion. We would require three years accounts in a format that is readily understood, preferably in English. If earned income is to be considered then the accounts must be available and produced by a recognised firm of international accountants as listed above.  Where the rental stream passes the appropriate stress and no earned income is being used, the underwriter has discretion as to the standing of the accountant used by the applicant – please refer.

Not only have Paragon refreshed their whole range of portfolio and non-portfolio products, but they’ve also increased their maximum loan amounts and aggregate borrowing limits.

You can find the full details of all these changes below:

Criteria changes
Portfolio
Increased our maximum loan amounts as follows:
• Up to 65% LTV – increased from £2,000,000 to £4,000,000
• Up to 70% LTV – increased from £1,000,000 to £1,500,000
• Up to 75% LTV – increased from £750,000 to £1,000,000
• Up to 80% LTV – increased from £500,000 to £750,000

Not only that, but we’ve also raised our aggregate borrowing limit from £5,000,000 per borrower to £10,000,000 per borrower.

Non-portfolio
We’ve increased our maximum loan amounts as follows:
• Up to 75% LTV – increased from £750,000 to £1,000,000
• Up to 80% LTV – introduced at £750,000

For full details, please download our portfolio and non-portfolio lending guidelines below.

Product refresh
As well as launching new products in both our portfolio and non-portfolio ranges, we’ve also introduced:
• 80% LTV products
• A new green product for every standard product, (which are 10bps lower)

And finally, to make things easier, we’ve refreshed our portfolio range so that the same rates are available for both single self-contained properties, HMOs and multi-unit blocks.

Take a look at our full range of products available by downloading our product guides or doing a full product search.

Portfolio buy-to-let product guide

Non-portfolio buy-to-let product guide

Search all products

Following a number of changes to the buy to let market over recent years, an increasing number of landlords are choosing to run their portfolio as a business within a limited company set up. Research from BVA BDRC suggests that one in every four landlords are considering doing so in the not-too-distant future*.

Find out how you can support your limited company landlords in 2022 in our article.

‘Considerations for landlords pursuing limited company structures in 2022’.

Discover the potential limited company lending could bring, and how Kent Reliance for Intermediaries’ products and criteria could open doors to new opportunities and considerations.

If you’re working on a limited company case, speak with your business development manager for a more detailed discussion on how we can help.

Alternatively, you can call our broker liaison team on 01634 835791 to discuss our limited company products and criteria.

*BVA BDRC Landlords Panel Report Q2 2021

Our underwriters spend their days looking at complex cases and working out the best ways to ensure over 55s get the mortgages that lenders on the high street just can’t match.

In the article below, we are giving you some history about Matt, Kylie and Krystle, their past experiences, how they made their way to LiveMore and some of the things they enjoy outside of working hours.

Read the article introducing our amazing team here.

Policy update

Great news! We’ve increased our maximum LTV to 95% for certain types of applications, in a positive step that sees us return to our pre-COVID lending policy.

Key Changes

• Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor applications increased the maximum LTV from 85% to 95%.
• 3 and 4 person applications increased the maximum LTV from 75% to 95%.
• Family purchase and tenant purchase applications increased the maximum LTV from 90% to 95%.

It’s just one of the ways we’re making things easier for you and your clients and helping more first time buyers onto the property ladder.

To find out more visit our website.

Anyone can check the Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) of a property here, and you should always do so – not only to verify it’s there before you submit a mortgage application but because you may also discover that your client is eligible for…Click here to read more