Building societies will need the assistance of specialist brokers if a change in lending criteria is required to help mortgage prisoners, the Building Societies Association (BSA) has said.
Paul Broadhead (pictured), head of mortgage policy at the Building Societies Association (BSA), spoke at The Council for Licensed Conveyancers’ (CLC) annual conference and said the appetite from building societies to help this market segment could grow in the coming months.
However, he said it was too early to determine whether this would be done with the development of a mortgage prisoner product or changes in criteria.
He said: “The Financial Conduct Authority only changed its rules about using a relative affordability assessment at the beginning of December and building societies are now working out how that might work.
“We’re only now starting to get a picture of borrowers and their attributes and can’t design a product without knowing that.”
Broadhead said he expected to “see some movement” in this area by spring.
Earlier this month, the Financial Conduct Authority criticised high street lenders for not adopting its affordability assessment changes as its analysis showed only 14,000 of the 250,000 borrowers placed with inactive, closed or unregulated lenders were able to benefit.
And today UK Finance revealed it had contacted the FCA about forming a pool of brokers willing to work with the mortgage prisoners.
Shekina is the deputy editor at Mortgage Solutions and commercial editor at Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions. She has nearly eight years of experience in the B2B publishing market, having previously covered the hospitality, retail, pet, accounting and jewellery sectors.
Shekina has worked for Mortgage Solutions and Specialist Lending Solutions for almost five years. Here, she covers the market’s breaking news stories, engages with professionals in the sector, and oversees any commercially agreed content in partnership with mortgage-related companies.
This includes presenting webinars and hosting roundtable discussions on developing themes in the mortgage sector.
She is an NCTJ-trained journalist and was nominated for the Headline Money Awards Mortgage Journalist of the Year in 2021.
In her spare time, Shekina likes to read, travel, listen to music and socialise with friends.
She currently reports on current events in the mortgage market and liaises with financial clients to produce sponsored content.
Follow her on Twitter at @ShekinaMS
