Inform 10th May 2024

Marsden Building Society

We’ve enhanced our affordability model for your later life clients

At Marsden Building Society, we’ve made some further improvements to our affordability model that could allow your clients aged 55 to 85 to borrow more than previously.

This follows a number of significant criteria updates to our Later Life and Retirement Interest Only (RIO) mortgage products.

Recent criteria changes

Your clients could borrow up to 5x income multiples on £-for-£ remortgage cases.
The maximum age at the end of term has increased to 90, product dependent.
Earned income accepted up to the age of 75.
Minimum equity requirements are now subject to underwriter’s discretion.

A reminder…

When assessing affordability, we’ll consider a wide range of income sources such as pensions, investments, and rental income. Additionally, the Society accepts 5% of pension pots or SIPPs, even if borrowers are not yet drawing from them.

Meet Richard…

Richard, 62, lives in his unencumbered property and wanted to raise £50,000 on his home to help his daughter get on the property ladder. His property is worth £500,000 and he works part-time at a school earning £9,000 per annum, plus his private pension pays £24,000 per annum.

How the Marsden helped…

The nature of Richard’s work, his plans to work beyond state pension age and 100% of his private pension provided a total income of £33,000, so the case fit our income multiples. As Richard’s outgoings were minimal, there were no issues around affordability. The reason for capital raising was acceptable and we were able to offer him a Later Life mortgage on a 13-year term paying interest only.

Get in touch

If you have a question about our products or criteria, or want to talk through a case, contact our Broker Support team who will be happy to help.

Buckinghamshire Building Society

Join Us for an Exclusive Webinar!

Following the success of our recent run of educational webinars, and after a number of requests to expand the series, we are pleased to announce our brand new Perfect Packaging Workshop.

This 30-minute session, hosted by Natalie Allsop, will take you through the dos and don’ts of packaging a case, including what documents we need and why. We’ll also look at alternative documents that may be acceptable and sharing tips to get your cases through quickly, first time!

Thursday 16th May at 10:30am

Meeting ID: 374 031 012 205
Passcode: juu246

Click here to join…

How to Join
This session will be hosted on Microsoft Teams. You don’t need to pre-register, just use the details above to join us on the day! Everyone is welcome!

The Mortgage Lender

Self-Employed Cases Don’t Have To Be Complex

The past few years have seen some growth in the number of self-employed people in the UK – there are now about 4.3 million of them. And while the self-employed work in all sectors at every income level, they all have one thing in common. They’re more likely to encounter challenges when trying to obtain a mortgage.

With some lenders leaving the self-employed behind, brokers like you are in a great position to help deliver positive outcomes – and to benefit from some extra business.

Our latest Lending Lowdown article looks at how our experience with the self-employed market can help you make the most of the opportunities. Our article covers:

how we’ve seen a 14.5% increase in self-employed applications in the last year alone
what self-employed people think of the service they’re getting from brokers
how brokers can benefit from diversifying into the self-employed market
real-life case studies, detailing how we’ve helped in some particularly tricky self-employed cases, often in quick time

With thousands of additional potential customers out there, overlooking the self-employed market could result in missed opportunities. And we’re here to help you make the most of it.

Read our full article here.

Suffolk Building Society

We’ve got expat mortgages… down pat!

According to the latest figures available from the Office of National Statistics, around 90,000 Brits emigrate long-term from the UK every year. Many of this group will want, or need, to keep a foothold in the UK’s property market.

Here are SIX reasons to trust us with your trickiest expat cases and clients:

Currencies – for BTL we’ll accept most currencies. For resi and regulated BTL, there are 16 currencies we’ll accept including the Hong Kong Dollar, Saudi Riyal and the Euro
LTVs – We’ll lend up to 80%
Incomes – Can consider up to 5.49x income if one applicant earns £100,000+ (pre-haircut) – there is no haircut if income is paid in sterling
First time buyers considered
Expat Holiday Lets – another of our specialties. Keep a foothold in the UK while receiving rental income, and we allow 60 days of personal use a year
Manual underwriting comes as standard. So if we need to look at a tricky property, multiple sources of income, or anything else unusual, it’s not a drama.

“When it comes to expat mortgages there are so many variables, and it’s an area where many lenders do things differently from one another.

This is where your lender relationships are invaluable. Having a knowledgeable BDM saved in your favourite contacts, who you know will call you back, can make all the difference.”Charlotte Grimshaw, Head of Intermediary Relations and Mortgage Sales

Mansfield Building Society

Purchasing a house to support son’s affordability

With an ageing population, coupled with the increasing cost of property, the average age of the first time buyer is rising and a growing number of people are borrowing beyond normal retirement age or looking at flexible ways to get on the property ladder.

In this case study, we helped a son buy his first home by allowing Mum and Dad to take out the mortgage with him. Details of the application included:

House purchase of a property valued at £101,950
Term of 15 years with the property eventually to be transferred fully to the son
Mum and Dad able to provide a 25% deposit
A loan amount of £77,263 was taken out on a capital repayment basis using the son’s PhD income
Oldest applicant aged 60. The Society was able to offer the three of them a mortgage, taking the oldest borrower to age 75 at the end of the term

The applicant was able to benefit from a gifted deposit from Mum and Dad and had the flexibility of adding multiple applicants to the mortgage.

We can accept up to four people on an application with up to 3 incomes used for the affordability assessment, and mortgages are available up to age 85 (maximum 70% loan to value between age 70 and age 85).

There are other ways we can help too. As well as our Family Assist range, we can also allow a close family member to contribute to the mortgage repayments without them having any ownership rights (Joint Borrower Sole Proprietor).

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/.

Aria Finance

Buy-to-let is now recovering, so let’s stop bashing it

In recent years, the buy-to-let (BTL) market has faced significant hurdles, from higher taxes to soaring interest rates – with some sections of the media even going as far as to claim that BTL is on its deathbed. Despite predictions of its demise, Lucy Waters uncovers a glimmer of hope amidst the gloom in a recent blog.

Read the blog in full and discover why optimism may be replacing doom and gloom.

More2life

Q1 Market update

With rates increasing in the residential mortgage market in recent weeks, Roland Steere, Managing Director of Asset Management, has taken an in depth look at market conditions in the later life lending market in Q1, and what we can expect to see in Q2 and beyond…

View Q1 Market Update here.

The Exeter

Claims paid = a difference made

£41.2 million – That’s how much we paid out for claims received across income protection, life and health insurance during 2023.

9,280 members. That’s how many members – and their families – we made differences for by paying their income protection, life, or health claim in 2023.

Take a closer look at the difference our paid claims have made to our members.

Vitality

Protection advice has never been more needed

With UK households under-protected, the role of advisers in delivering thorough, comprehensive protection advice has never been more important, writes Vitality Adviser Editor, Rob Harvey.

Read the article

Legal & General

We’re on your wavelength

We know how important it is for you to recommend quality cover that suits the changing needs of your clients, your business and the market.

That’s why we’ve improved our Critical Illness Extra and Children’s Critical Illness Extra to make it a better choice for you and your clients as health, demands and needs change.

What we’ve done: