Inform 5th May 2023

We have strengthened our Affordable Home Ownership proposition with the launch of specialist mortgages for customers who are buying a home using the Right to Buy scheme.

Pepper Money’s new Right to Buy mortgages will allow eligible council tenants in England to buy their home with a discount of up to £96,010 or, if living in London, up to £127,940.  

As part of its commitment to help Hopeful Homeowners, Pepper Money has already launched dedicated mortgages to enable customers to buy their own home through Shared Ownership and Help to Buy, as well as a remortgage option for customers with an existing Help to Buy mortgage. Each proposition within Pepper Money’s Affordable Home Ownership range features broad, inclusive criteria, with carefully curated products to meet the specific requirements of the individual schemes. Broker partners can rest assured that they will be supported by dedicated teams and processes. 

Ryan Brailsford, Director of Business Development at Pepper Money, says: “At Pepper Money, we have a clear purpose to deliver positive societal outcomes and promote greater financial inclusion to a more diverse range of customers. Our Affordable Home Ownership proposition plays an important role in this, and we are committed to helping even more Hopeful Homeowners to achieve their dreams with our launch into Right to Buy.  

“The rising cost of living and continued increase in house prices are making it harder for those Hopeful Homeowners to take their first step onto the property ladder and Right to Buy can provide an affordable solution for those customers who have the option to take this route. Our Right to Buy mortgages provide the perfect option for customers whose circumstances mean they are not properly served by the high street because of the way in which they earn their income or their credit history.” 

Uinsure is now the first platform in the UK that can track an individual’s mortgage progress and provide fully automated communications at key moments in the mortgage cycle.

Watch the TMA Vidcast, where our very own Louise Evans, Head of Operations, goes on the UinsureCX journey from a client point of view and obtains a quote within seconds!

Watch now.

Bluestone Mortgages

Don’t let a poor credit history stop your customers’ dream of being a homeowner

At Bluestone Mortgages, we know that life can take unexpected twists and turns which can affect your customers’ finances, but unlike banks and other high-street lenders, we don’t label people as ‘Unlendable’ because of it. When it comes to customers with a low credit score, we strive to understand the situation behind their credit situation and base our lending decision on their circumstances rather than their credit score.

Meet logan lowscore

Our Solution  

High-street lenders labelled him ‘Unlendable’, but not us. His broker knew that as a specialist lender, we don’t credit score and ignore all defaults under £300, meaning Logan can get our best product tier. We could approve Logan for a loan based on his affordability.

Many success stories with instances like Logans have joined our ever-growing family of Unlendables. If any of your customers remind you of Logan Lowscore, we’re here for them and here for you.

For more information about our products and criteria, call us on 0800 368 1833 or request a callback and one of our Business Development Managers will be in touch with you.   

Mansfield Building Society

lending into retirement – Versatility Case Study

Our specialist Versatility range is for complex circumstances and this case study shows how we’ve helped where there are unusual circumstances, adverse credit and lending into retirement. The application involved:

• Mother and daughter purchasing from father/grandfather at a discounted price
• Mother’s lending extends into retirement at age 70
• Background unsatisfied CCJ from an unpaid car parking fine for mother

With the property valued at £250,000, the father was only looking to sell at £200,000 and the mother and daughter were looking to borrow the full amount. The loan was therefore 100% of the discounted purchase price and at 80% loan to value to be taken out over 17 years.

Both of the applicants were nurses and the application was on a repayment basis. One of the applicants had an unsatisfied County Court Judgement (CCJ) due to an unpaid parking fine. In addition, the mother would be extending her borrowing into retirement slightly, until the age of 70. Due to the unsatisfied CCJ, the application was assessed to fit our Versatility Plus criteria.

A common sense approach

At Mansfield Building Society, we were able to accommodate these complex circumstances by taking a personal and common sense approach.

If you’ve got a case on your desk that requires a bit more Versatility then please pick up the phone to our Broker Support team on 01623 676360 or visit https://www.mansfieldbs.co.uk/intermediaries/.

Legal & General

Protecting your clients and their wealth

At Legal & General, we put you and your business at the heart of what we do. We do this by making sure our products and services are built on choice, so you can deliver more for your clients.

We are on hand to support you and navigate the protection market and help your clients get the cover they need.

Tailored support for your high value clients:

Expert support and advice

• Providing technical and specialist support for your high-net-worth and business protection clients.
• We work closely with you, making sure each case is handled quickly, sensitively, and at the convenience of your client.
• We’re Business Protection specialists, providing the latest market insights and selling techniques.

Comprehensive cover

We offer quality protection products for all your clients’ needs. Our full range of personal and business protection products, you can build the right plan for your clients all in one place. With our signatureless online trusts, price beater and Gift Inter Vivos, we offer a comprehensive solution for all your client’s needs.

Trusted brand

• 9 times winner of the Moneyfacts Business Protection Provider award, we’ve proudly been protecting clients for over 180 years.
• We signed up to the Protection Distributor Group Claims Charter and Funeral Pledge, which demonstrates our commitment to good customer outcomes.
• Rated AA- by Standard & Poor’s, you can trust we’ll be here to support you and your clients.

Our sales and service teams are available across the UK to make sure you have a protection contact, wherever you are. Use our new tool to find your dedicated sales and support contacts.

Find my dedicated team

The Mortgage Lender

Women and mortgages

In many areas throughout history, women have had to go to great lengths in order to achieve equality with men. Gaining the right to own property is one such example, and if we take a look back at history, we can see the strides that have been made to reach where we are today. Here, we take a look at the key changes that helped shape housing and mortgage opportunities for women, the progress that has been made, and what more needs to be done to close the gender gap that exists today.

Our article explores:

• History of women and property
• Where we are now
• What brokers can do to help

You can read our full article here.

Santander for Intermediaries

Inputting credit commitments

Current credit commitments must be included when assessing affordability.

If a customer has a financial agreement which has a balloon payment associated to it, this must always be declared as a financial commitment however, the following credit commitments do not need to be included:

• Any credit card balance that has been paid in full for at least the last six months before application.
• Credit commitments with four months or less to run at the time of application submission, as long as the customer doesn’t intend to take on a new credit commitment to replace the existing one. You must record in the general notes section in Introducer Internet:
  – Applicant name
  – Commitment type
  – Balance
  – Lender
  – Monthly payment
  – Confirmation that the customer doesn’t intend to take on a new credit commitment.

Always use the affordability calculator on our website to find out how much your customer can borrow. You may want to view your customer’s credit report to get a more accurate amount of how much we may be able to lend.

As your trusted later life lender, we have been working hard to give you the broadest range of market-leading products in the later life lending market.

Prime has a high LTV proposition, up to 48.1%, that brings you more options to deliver better customer outcomes for you clients.

Find out more about Prime here.

Do you have a long-term vision for your business? If so, you don’t want to be leaving anything to chance, and you’ll be drawing up a plan to make sure your vision comes to pass.

As part of this, you need to bear in mind the fact that at some point in the future, you’ll inevitably move on or retire.

In Accords latest Growth Series guide – Get Your Business Future Ready – we look at how you can make sure your business is ready for that day, so it will continue to thrive and any transition period can go smoothly.

We’ll discuss:

• Why you should plan for the future
• Giving your team a stake in the future of your business
• Making sure your business is ready for due diligence
• The need to review your strategy regularly

And don’t forget to subscribe to our live, on-demand Accord Growth Series Library for regular updates, insights and guidance you can share with your clients.

Click here to download your guide.

The Consumer Duty is a new package of measures from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) which requires financial services firms to show that they are acting to deliver good outcomes for retail customers, replacing the existing FCA requirements to ‘treat customers fairly’.

The Consumer Duty is designed to set clearer and higher expectations on the standards of care retail customers receive and represents an opportunity to demonstrate aspects of our business are oriented toward delivering greater protection for customers when choosing, selecting, and accessing financial products.

Consumer Duty means that retail customers should be able to:

• have products and services that meet their needs and offer fair value
• receive communications they can understand which help them to make informed decisions
• receive the support they need when they need it.

The Consumer Duty comes into force on the 31st July 2023. For any product or service which is closed to new customers we have until 31st July 2024 to apply the new rules.

For further information on Consumer Duty visit the FCA website

We are here to support you, so what are we doing to prepare for the 31st July deadline?

Here you’ll find answers to the most frequently asked questions.

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