Foundation makes criteria changes

This is to lend to borrowers with accidental and historical blips or credit issues in the past year.

Foundation makes criteria changes

Foundation Home Loans has made criteria changes to its residential range to help those with adverse credit.

Foundation has opened up its residential range that is aimed at borrowers who narrowly miss the requirements of mainstream high street lenders to now include those with accidental and historical blips, and to borrowers with credit issues in the past year.

Jeff Knight (pictured), director of marketing at Foundation Home Loans, said: “We believe there are a growing number of borrowers who might best be described as ‘mainstream misses’ – essentially clients who, for any number of reasons, don’t meet the criteria requirements of the larger, high-street lenders.

“Our residential offering is aimed firmly at these borrowers and, as long as they don’t have mortgage arrears in the last 36 months, Foundation has the residential product range which should satisfy advisers and their clients’ needs.

“We’ve introduced a number of criteria enhancements designed to make life as easy as possible for such clients, and to broaden our offering to ensure that credit-worthy borrowers – who might just have some historical credit blips – can still secure competitively-priced mortgage finance.”

Foundation will now view missed payments on credit cards alongside simple communication issues and other revolving credit.

Borrowers with one unsatisfied CCJ of a maximum £200 which is more than 12 or 24 months old can now access Foundation’s ‘F2’ and ‘F3’ product ranges.

Defaults up to £250 on telecommunications, utility bills and mail orders will now be ignored.

The lender has also sought to simplify its residential mortgage application process by asking for fewer documents and reducing reference requests.

It no longer requires bank statements for all cases, only in selected scenarios.

The lender has also changed its maximum loan sizes from £750,000 across all LTV bands to £2m at 65% LTV and £500,000 for borrowers seeking 90% LTV mortgages.

Knight added: “We are now lending at 90% LTV for the first time, plus we’ve increased our maximum loan size to £2m. We are also requesting less documentation, depending on individual circumstances.

“Minor credit blips may push certain borrowers outside the ‘norms’ of the mainstream lenders, but we believe they are still very much credit-worthy and we have the overall product offering, criteria and service to ensure they get the mortgages they deserve.”