News in brief – 24 June 2022

Foundation Home Loans has widened the criteria for its ‘professionals’ mortgage range which offers enhanced loan-to-income limits. The specialist lender’s professionals range allows first-time buyers, home movers and those looking to remortgage who are in eligible professions to borrow up to six times their income. Foundation defines a professional as someone currently practicing and holding a relevant qualification, with eligible professions including accounting, actuarial, medical, legal, surveying, architecture and engineering. The lender has now broadened its list of eligible professions to now include chartered tax advisers, optometrists, radiographers and chiropodists.

Mortgage and protection brokerage, Access Financial Services, has announced that it has now surpassed the milestone of 100 brokers. The firm has achieved this in five years after its founder, Karl Wilkinson, set up Access FS in April 2017. Access FS also doubled revenues in its last financial year, ending 30 April 2022, compared to the year before, and also plans to double the number of brokers in the firm.
 
Wealth Wizards has launched a new software solution, Turo Wellbeing, aimed at enabling advice firms, banks and building societies to help consumers improve their financial wellbeing. The firm’s solution, which starts with a set of non-intrusive questions that review nine different areas of wellbeing, also aims to help consumers plan for a more prosperous retirement, against a backdrop of soaring living costs. Royal London is currently using Turo Wellbeing to create a series of personalised journeys to help their customers improve their financial wellbeing and retirement prospects, through a guidance-only pathway.

First and second charge lender, Central Trust, has extended the availability of its consumer buy-to-let (CBTL) mortgage proposition by making it available to borrowers in Northern Ireland. The lender’s CBTL mortgages are suitable for landlords who originally purchased the property with no intention to rent it out, or don’t own any other properties that are being rented. Central Trust confirmed the maximum LTV on its CBTL products in Northern Ireland is 75%.

Pepper Money has launched a new offer to help buy-to-let (BTL) customers understand the energy efficiency rating of their properties and how they could improve their rating. As part of a commitment to ESG driven lending, Pepper Money announced it is offering customers who hold BTL mortgages with the specialist lender in their individual names to claim a free energy efficiency survey, EPC certificate and tailored action plan. In February, Pepper Money launched a similar initiative for its homeowner customers, which resulted in hundreds of free EPCs being claimed.

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