The Intermediary – September 2025 - Flipbook - Page 61
RESIDENTIAL
Opinion
Borrowers need
pragmatism
L
ast month, we
announced the very
welcome partnership
between The Beverley
Building Society and
TMA Mortgage Club. The
society’s customer-focused approach
is one that more people are needing
every day.
With job security and a sense that
companies are increasingly reticent
about taking on older – and more
expensive – staff into senior roles, it’s
pushing many into self-employment.
That brings with it more complex
income streams just at a time when
borrowing past retirement age
is becoming a necessity for ever
more of us.
Generational support
The environment for younger
borrowers is no less complex – they
too need access to mortgage finance
that adapts to real-life circumstances,
especially where they don’t fit
the mould.
This is where Beverley’s range
offers advisers another, very valuable,
string to their bows. Their offering
includes 100% mortgages using
parental property as security, interestonly options with no minimum
income threshold, and affordability
assessments based solely on interestonly terms.
This pragmatic approach is
increasingly common among
organisations that offer manual
underwriting. It means mutuals like
the Beverley can consider 95% loanto-value (LTV) mortgages via credit
search and have products tailored
to self-employed borrowers, foster
carers, contractors, multigenerational
households and buyers of agerestricted retirement properties.
Applications are judged on individual
merit rather than rigid criteria.
For borrowers facing purchase or
refinance in a market dominated by
the ‘big six’ high street lenders, it can
feel as though there are few to no
options available to them if they don’t
immediately fit bank criteria. Most
people have a low awareness of smaller
building societies, and regional
societies in particular.
Yet with a tradition of helping
their members become and stay
homeowners that goes back hundreds
of years, it’s these lenders that will
take the time to understand customers
to make that happen.
Many now offer mortgages
designed to support borrowers who
need a bit of help from loved ones to
make their homeownership dream a
reality. From family-assisted, shared
mortgage arrangements, gied
deposits and guarantor mortgages
to joint mortgage, sole proprietor
arrangements, mutuals can work with
brokers to structure a deal that works
for the borrower’s personal needs.
Traditional guarantors are also
oen accepted and assessed for
affordability in the same way as
borrowers themselves by societies such
as the Beverley.
Joint borrower, sole proprietor
arrangements allow between two and
four applicants on the mortgage with
only the occupiers named on the title.
The non-occupier borrower must be
able to individually afford at least
50% of the monthly payment at the
affordability stress level. The primary
borrower (occupier) needs to be able
afford the remaining element.
Intergenerational support goes both
ways, from parents and grandparents
wanting to help younger family
members, to adult children assisting
their parents in geing a mortgage for
their later years, where their pension
income won’t quite stretch.
Manual underwriting can provide
nuance in areas where other lenders
may struggle.
Self-employment is also growing
faster among older workers, especially
those in their mid-60s and above,
according to the Centre for Ageing
ROB MCCOY
is senior product and business
manager at TMA
Beer. More than half of people aged
70 and over who are still working are
self-employed.
Flexible and pragmatic criteria
can oen be the difference between
people’s decision to even apply for
a loan. The rise of the gig economy
has been swi, with research from
StandOutCV suggesting there are now
around 1.7 million people in the UK
with some form of income coming
from a so-called gig. They found one
in six adults in the UK currently works
a gig job at least once a week. Almost
half also have a full-time job and, for
72%, gig work makes up less than half
of their income.
With such a radical shi in people’s
income and affordability paerns,
lenders are increasingly split into two
camps: those that want nothing to
do with what they view as complex
cases and those, oen mutuals like
the Beverley, which are commied to
considering applications on a case-bycase basis according to its merits.
Exceptional work
It’s our job as a mortgage club to ensure
brokers have access to all the solutions
for clients who, let’s be honest, are
very individual in their requirements.
Today’s mortgage market may feel
very familiar but the context around it
is very different in terms of the issues
facing individuals.
This is why we are working hard
to partner with as many lenders
as we can to meet those growing,
exceptional cases. ●
September 2025 | The Intermediary
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