Mortgage holiday leads to criteria changes

March 28, 2020 by Brendan O'Neill

Mortgage Advisors

The three month break from mortgage payments announced by the government in the wake of the Covid-19 virus outbreak has led a raft of major mortgage lenders in the UK to update their lending criteria.

A total of 91 different lenders contacted Knowledge Bank to update their lending criteria in the immediate aftermath and 926 updates have been made overall. In response to this, Knowledge Bank has set up a new online tool that provides mortgage advisors with a live feed that lets them track these updates, with 509 advisors having already chosen to register for it.

This feed was created to store all Covid-19 related policies and criteria for UK mortgage lenders and give advisors a single reference point for these, with lenders updating it 24/7 as the latest information becomes available. Knowledge Bank is stating that not all of the numerous criteria changes are due to the Covid-19 mortgage holiday, with some simply being down to new mortgage products being launched by lenders.

Speaking to Financial Reporter, Knowledge Bank CEO and founder Nicola Firth said that the speed with which new data was being issued meant that something was needed to assist lenders and advisors in dealing with public enquiries adding:

“This live feed is a completely free to use tool for brokers and the industry to help deal efficiently with the understandable concerns from borrowers in these unprecedented times.”

Tools like this one are likely to be almost as invaluable to mortgage advisors during this period as a CeMAP training course is.