Decrying the lack of access to lending for older borrowers, Simon Tyler, managing director of Tyler Mortgage Management (TMM), said lenders were adopting a “refuse first, ask questions later” attitude, simply because an individual’s mortgage term stretched into retirement.
He explained this tendency to block older customers’ access to borrowing was thwarting plans for buyers as young as their late 40s.
“All they [older borrowers] really need is access to a senior underwriter who has the authority and common sense to make sensible lending decisions. Front line staff are simply not qualified or authorised to say yes to these borrowers,” he said.
In November the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) queried whether lenders were thinking about their customers’ best interests when assessing affordability under the Mortgage Market Review rules.
FCA chief executive Martin Wheatley recently said there was little he could do to force lenders to take a more sensible approach and that older borrowers should approach brokers and specialist lenders for more help.
Tyler said offering a free assessment to borrowers struggling to obtain a mortgage was a good way of helping them to find out if they had a realistic chance of getting a loan or not.
TMM said it would be offering free assessments to older borrowers and undertaking the work on a “no win, no fee” basis if it believed the customer has a good chance of obtaining a loan, even if they have been previously turned down elsewhere.
“The fact is that many people over 50 years old are being turned down flat when they are perfectly credit worthy and able to pay off their loans comfortably,” Tyler added.
“It’s really disappointing constantly reading about older borrowers being declined, this cannot be the outcome the FCA were intending but we have such a high success rate, we want to draw people’s attention to our service and help people get the mortgage they need.”
