Suffolk Building Society (formerly Ipswich Building Society) is improving its lending criteria with four key changes.
From Today (Tuesday 7 December), the Society will increase and standardise the maximum loan size to £1m across <80% loan-to-value (LTV) standard residential, expat residential, expat buy-to-let, buy-to-let, and holiday let products. The previous maximum loan size varied between products and ranged from £500k to £750k.
Recognising that rising house prices means that it is sometimes necessary for family members to purchase a property together, the Society will now consider applications from family members across its product range.
For buy-to-let applications, the Society is removing its 10 times indebtedness rule. This means that where previously an applicant could not have any more than 10 times their sole or joint income in debt in their personal or limited company name, the Society will now judge outstanding credit commitments on a common-sense basis, allowing it to use its discretion to lend above this limit. The maximum portfolio size will remain as three buy-to-let and/or holiday let properties, or 10 background properties on a residential application.
Where Suffolk Building Society previously would only consider family Assured Shorthold Tenancy Agreements (ASTs), it will now allow landlords to let their property to three unrelated professionals on a single AST.
Charlotte Grimshaw, head of intermediary relations, Suffolk Building Society, said: “These changes are as a result of us continually assessing the marketplace to better understand how we can support intermediaries and their clients.
“We don’t promise to lend to everyone but relaxing our criteria in these four areas means that we can help with a greater number of broker cases, with clients benefitting from our common-sense approach to underwriting.”
