Mutual Skipton Building Society suggested the surprising strength of the mortgage market’s bounce back after Covid was bringing a return to some of its more complex lending policies, including 95 per cent loan to value lending for joint borrower, sole proprietor applicants.
On Skipton’s latest podcast, John Scrivens, intermediary lead, at the society said: “One thing at Skipton we’re looking to do towards the end of October is support more joint borrowers sole proprietors by returning to 95 per cent for these people. So, we’ll look to take up to four incomes and offer the product back up to 95 per cent, which is great news.”
On Monday, the mutual announced it would raise lending limits from 85 per cent loan to value (LTV) more than a year after restricting lending due to the pandemic.
Karen Appleton, head of new lending, Skipton BS, said: “I think like a lot of lenders we’ve been quite surprised by the strength of the mortgage market and actually the ability for customers to rebound. Actually, it’s taken us a little bit by surprise. So while we tightened up during the pandemic, now is absolutely the right time to go back to pre-Covid policies.”
Appleton added that the lender is also looking at taking 100 per cent of additional income again, which it did before Covid based on two year’s worth of evidence of bonus income.
On the 4 October, the mutual also confirmed an increase to its maximum loan sizes and LTV across the range.
Listen to our latest podcast [23.09] (for intermediary use only) hosted by group editor of Mortgage Solutions Victoria Hartley.
Victoria Hartley is contributing editor at Mortgage Solutions, Specialist Lending Solutions, Your Money and Your Mortgage at London-based publishing company AE3 Media.
She has an MA in Radio from Goldsmiths after gaining a 2:1 in a Comparative American Studies BA at Warwick University. She also holds a TEFL qualification and taught overseas in Mexico and Japan from 1994 to 1997.
Her role includes editorial oversight of the news, analysis and features, event content management and strategic and editorial consultancy for the AE3 Media group. She is an experienced video, broadcast and live-event host and regularly chairs web and podcast debates and interviews.
Multiple award nominations have resulted in two wins: Santander Media Awards, trade journalist of the year and Headlinemoney Awards, mortgage journalist of the year (B2B). Here is one of the award-winning pieces: https://www.mortgagesolutions.co.uk/news/2011/07/21/exclusive-tale-bailey-fraud-witness/
Previous roles include editorships of Mortgage Solutions, consumer title What Mortgage and trade title Credit Today as well as a stint freelancing for a variety of outlets including The Guardian and Which? Money.
