The lender, which is part of the Yorkshire Building Society group, said it has reviewed its existing application process and has taken into consideration how freelancers and contractors receive income less regularly than permanent employees.
The new criteria will give applicants added flexibility by allowing up to eight weeks between contracts in a trading year.
Accord has been working with Contractor Financials to develop the pilot and has begun rolling it out to five additional specialist broker firms. They include Contractor Mortgages Made Easy, Coreco Group, Contract Mortgages Ltd, Freelancer Financials and Power Mortgages, with a long-term view to expand into the full broker market in 2017.
Gerry Dobbin, corporate account manager at Accord, said: “The only thing that sets contractors apart from permanent employees is the way they generate their income. We felt that it was essential to create a level playing field for these workers and update our policy so they can easily access mortgages that are available to everyone else.”
Dobbin added that instead of asking for reams of documentation of their finances, the new policy will ask contractors to provide their latest CV, most recent payslips and three months worth of personal and business bank statements.
Luke Somerset, business development director at Contractor Financials, said it was delighted to be working with Accord and saw it as a good opportunity for the intermediary market to pave the way for contractor clients.
