Natwest, Nargeaves Lansdown, Daily Mail and UK Finance in Lending

by | Aug 16, 2017 | Digital Lending

  • UK Finance has reported that landlord investment in London property has dropped by over 50% since April 2016, when the Government increased stamp duty for buyers of second homes. In Q1 2017, there were 1,126 mortgaged purchases by buy-to-let landlords in London, down from an average of 2,500 in 2014 and 2015. In Manchester, there were 840 mortgaged buy-to-let purchases, down from an average of 1,000 in 2014 and 2015
  • Daily Mail has reported over half of Wellesley’s customers are behind on their payments or in default. The newspaper claims to have seen documents that detail the extent of mounting losses at the peer-to-peer lender. Ten loans worth £11.7m were described as non-performing with a loss forecast, meaning the lender is not expecting to get all its money back
  • NatWest has announced an overhaul of its underwriting processes for portfolio landlords ahead of regulatory changes for complex buy-to-let. From 11 September 2017, the lender will require additional information on landlords’ other residential and buy-to-let properties to enable a full affordability assessment, with the same stress rate applied to all other mortgages in addition to the current application. Other changes will include a rise in the number of buy-to-let properties allowed per customer from four to 10 and a cut in the interest coverage ratio
  • Hargreaves Lansdown research for the Daily Mail has found that graduates will pay as much as £18,000 extra on their student loans because an outdated measure of inflation is used to set interest rates. The index used, the Retail Prices Index, is currently around 1 percentage point higher than the Consumer Prices Index