We’re listening to you. We’re broadening our proposition and improving our criteria to make packaging loans with us even easier and quicker.
We’re lifting the lid on almost everything we do to make doing business with us easier and delivering efficiencies to our broker partners. You’ve provided us with some great ideas, many of which you’ll see us implement over the coming weeks and months.
Thank you for working with us to make positive change.
Here is the next batch of enhancements. There are several, so please take the time to read this bulletin in full, and the relevant detail in the Packaging Guide.
| Summary of Criteria Change | Where to Read the Detail | |
| Self Employed
Applicants |
We can accept less than 3 years’ trading history, with a minimum of 2 years’ acceptable income proof for applications on Prime and XLTV ranges. One year remains acceptable on Plus.
We’ll now use the latest year’s income across all product ranges. |
Prime
Pages 16 & 19 |
| Married Sole Applicants | We now accept sole applications for married or civil partnered couples where the applicant’s spouse isn’t on the mortgage or land registry provided a Consent Deed is completed by the non-applicant. Although the non-applicant is not required to obtain independent legal advice, they must be informed of their right to do so, prior to signing the Consent Deed. | Prime
Page 13 Plus |
| Proof of Residency | We now only require proof of residency at the property for the current year. Online statements are now acceptable. | Prime Page 12Plus Page 11 |
| Independent Legal Advice | It is the responsibility of the solicitor to agree the method that they wish to adopt in providing the advice. For example, in person or online. | Prime Page 26Plus Page 25 |
| Cash Out
(Home Improvements) |
We now usually only require evidence of what cash out is to be used for where it exceeds £100k. However, when cash out exceeds £15k we’ll still require a breakdown of its intended purpose. | Prime Page 11Plus Page 10 |
| Contracts | We now only require sight of a contract when an applicant is contracting or on a zero hour contract. | Prime Page 15Plus Page 14 |
| Car Purchases | We no longer restrict the repayment term for loans being used to purchase a car. | n/a |
| Ground Rent and Service Charge | We now accept ground rent and service charges as declared by the applicant(s). We will usually no longer ask for evidence. | n/a |
| Investment Property Purchase and Background BTL’s | Where an applicant is buying an investment property, we no longer require proof of savings or a mortgage illustration if they already own four or more rental properties.
Where background BTL’s exist, we no longer require ASTs, Land Registry searches, or credit searches for the BTL’s. If the credit search shows acceptable mortgage payment conduct (we do not require all mortgages to appear on the credit search), then we only require our BTL Property Schedule completed (attached) to evidence the portfolio is self-funding. Where the portfolio is not self-funding, we’ll include the shortfall as expenditure in our affordability assessment. |
Prime Page 11 & 26 Plus |
| Second Job Income | We now accept 100% of income from a second job if the applicant has been in receipt of the income for at least 6 months provided:
|
Prime Page 20Plus Page 19 |
| Ex-local Authority Flats and Maisonettes | We now accept applications for ex-local authority flats and maisonettes on all product ranges except XLTV when the property is in pre-emption. But please refer properties above four storeys or more than fifty units in the block. | Prime Page 32 Plus |
| Payslips | We have extended the period acceptable for the latest payslip. We now accept the latest payslip if dated within two months of submission, for both processing and job check purposes. However, we now require six weeks of payslips when applicants are paid weekly. Please note we will continue to accept two weekly payslips for applications received on or before the 22nd November. | Prime Pages 15 & 25Plus Pages 14 & 24 |
| Employment History | We would like to clarify existing criteria; please continue to refer applications where a customer has had more than two employers in the last twelve months. | Prime Page 15Plus Page 14 |
These enhancements apply immediately and to pipeline applications received on or before 22nd November and are confirmed in our latest Packaging Guides, which are attached, along with our BTL Property Schedule and Consent Deed.
Please note Nivo are currently updating the submission checklist to reflect the changes.
If you have any questions or would like to discuss how Pepper could help your customers, please contact Matthew Batte (07498 291038), Luke Edwards (07542 321177), Ryan McGrath (07354 249284) or myself.
Many thanks,
| Jennifer Evans Interim Operations Director – Seconds Origination |
07354 249285