Legal & General Home Finance has recently announced a new 5-year partnership agreement with Virgin Money, which will see the retirement lender offer its lifetime mortgage product range to the bank’s interest-only customers aged 55 and over.

Under the new agreement, Virgin Money’s customers with interest-only mortgages will be introduced to Legal & General’s advised mortgage products as they approach the end of their loan term.

Commenting on the partnership, Legal & General Home Finance CEO Steve Ellis said: “Solving the interest-only challenge is just one area where we see lifetime mortgages as a potentially transformative solution for the lives of UK borrowers. Britain’s over-55s are currently sitting on over £1trn of property wealth – what could that money do for retirement outcomes, our housing market, and even our economy?

“Lifetime mortgages are already having a hugely positive impact on our society, and at Legal & General we are committed to raising awareness about the transformative effect these products could have for many of Britain’s retirees.”

Kent Reliance reduces minimum loan size

Kent Reliance, part of specialist mortgage provider and retail savings group OneSavings Bank, has announced that it is making changes to its mortgage criteria, including reducing minimum loan sizes, extending mortgage offer validity and increasing valuation periods for new builds.

Minimum loan sizes across its mortgage product range, excluding its expat and specialist buy-to-let products, are reducing from £70,000 to £50,000 up to 75% LTV.

OneSavings Bank sales director Adrian Moloney said: “Following broker feedback we’ve been refining our new build proposition, particularly for shared ownership to reflect current market requirements.

“The criteria changes, especially the minimum loan changes, reflect our continued commitment to extending our distribution, particularly in the North of England, where we have been steadily building our BDM support network to ensure that we can offer the same high levels of expertise and support for specialist brokers throughout the UK.”

Charles Stanley adds award-winning portfolios to 7IM platform

Charles Stanley has recently added its award-winning range of managed portfolios to the 7IM platform, which will now be available to advisers.

As a result of the addition of the manged portfolios, the 7IM platform is now the tenth platform in which advisers can access Charles Stanley managed portfolios.

Charles Stanley head of intermediary sales Steve Hell commented: “Adding our range of managed portfolios to the 7IM platform is another signal of our commitment to serving the intermediary market. We believe we offer an extremely compelling managed portfolio service and this move will enable more advisers to access them on behalf of their clients. We are also in the process of appointing two dedicated MPS sales managers to the team, who will focus on promoting our unique blend of active and passive investing.”

TSB joins Paradigm lender panel

Paradigm Mortgage Services has today announced the addition of TSB to its lender panel, making the bank the 14th addition in the last 12 months.

Going forward, selected Paradigm member firms will be able to access its range of lending products, including a variety of fixed and variable rate residential and buy-to-let mortgages.

TSB offers an LTV of up to 75% for BTL products (65% for new build properties), with a maximum loan size of £500,000. The lender also offers two, three, five and ten-year fixed-rate residential mortgages for first-time buyers, and up to 95% LTV for home-movers.

Paradigm head of mortgage services John Coffield said: “We are very pleased to be starting this new relationship with TSB; at Paradigm we want to ensure that our members have access to the right products and at the right terms. We’re looking forward to working closely with the TSB team in order to develop its offering with our members.”

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