HSBC – helping the Self Employed
There has been a lot in the news over the last few days about banks and mortgage lenders not doing enough to support the self employed. A lot of lenders have been quoted as refusing to lend due to self employed taking the SEISS grants during the pandemic. Whilst this to some extent is true and it has certainly become more difficult to obtain a mortgage for our self employed clients, there are still lenders out there who can help.
In fact HSBC are actively looking to help self employed clients by recently launching a new system called “Open Banking” which allows the clients to link their business accounts to the mortgage application, saving the underwriters time and therefore allowing them to even “prioritise” their mortgage applications.
The Open Banking system allows HSBC to access the turnover of the self employed business account for 3 years which gives them the exact dates they need to assess the company pre and post COVID income and if within the allowable limits of fluctuation, they will then use the average of 2 years net profits for sole traders or 2 years average salary and share of net profit after tax for limited company directors, which can dramatically increase the lending in comparison to other lenders, especially when they will still allow up to 5* times for self employed. *depending on LTV and Income level.
HSBC are also one of the few still happy to lend to those who have taken a SEISS grant; amongst other lenders such as The Mortgage Lender, Santander and Barclays. So despite what you read in the papers, your self employed clients can be reassured, there are still mortgage lenders who will help Self Employed and who will not scrutinise those self employed clients who took the help that they were entitled to!
Refer your self employed clients on to your adviser today to see if we can help!
Barclays launch MAB Exclusives
We are very lucky as part of the MAB network to be large enough to obtain our own exclusive products with lenders from time to time! This week Barclays have launched an MAB exclusive range including a 90% 2 year fixed at 2.25% which is 0.24% lower than the rates we have available last week!
