Our Mortgage Prisoner Policy

Your client must meet the eligibility criteria and be able to provide the letter confirming their mortgage prisoner status.

We have created a Mortgage Prisoner Calculator to help you understand if your client is likely to pass our proportionate affordability assessment. Clients who pass our standard affordability check can be submitted as a standard remortgage.

Mortgage Prisoner cases will fail the standard affordability assessment included in our submission process. This will produce a refer at the point of submission, however we will underwrite your client’s application in line with the proportionate affordability assessment. There is no need to amend and resubmit.

If you receive a decline at point of sale the case has not passed another element of criteria and we will be unable to assist your client.

If you receive an accept response the client has passed the standard affordability assessment and can be submitted as a standard remortgage application.

Mortgage Prisoner applications are only eligible for clients who/where:

·         Hold a current mortgage

·         Have been identified as a Mortgage Prisoner by the FCA

·         Have had their Mortgage Prisoner status confirmed in a letter from their existing lender

·         Have been given advice by a broker identified by the FCA as able to provide advice on mortgage prisoner mortgages

·         Is up to date on mortgage repayments and hasn’t had a shortfall in the last 12 months

·         Does not have any unpaid fees or charges having been applied to their existing mortgage in the last 12 months

·         Does not want to borrow additional funds other than for product/arrangement or intermediary fees

·         Is switching to a new deal on their existing property

·         The new deal is more affordable than their existing mortgage

·         The new deal is a lower total expected cost and lower interest rate over the period of the agreement that their existing mortgage

·         The typical monthly repayment under the new mortgage arrangement must be lower than the monthly repayment made in every one of the last 12 months under their existing mortgage

Clients who do not meet these criteria are not able to use a track record of making mortgage payments as part of a proportionate affordability assessment, we will be unable to progress the application.

Key points to follow:

Please initially assess Mortgage Prisoners with our standard affordability calculator. If your client passes standard affordability this means that we may be able to offer additional borrowing or consolidation of debts where appropriate to further help your client.

For Mortgage Prisoner applications which fail our standard affordability checks, we have created a Mortgage Prisoner Calculator (accessed via the link in the banner above) to help you understand if your client is likely to pass the proportionate affordability checks. Your client must pass this proportionate affordability check for you to proceed with the application.

When submitting a Mortgage Prisoner application, you must correctly answer the question “is this a mortgage prisoner application” in the online application form to allow us to process the case without delay or disruption.

Mortgage Prisoner cases will fail the standard affordability assessment included in our application submission process. This will produce a refer decision at the point of submission, we will then assess your client with a proportionate affordability assessment. There is no need to amend and resubmit.

You must include your client's Mortgage Prisoner letter from their current lender in addition to your standard packaging at outset. Failure to do so will mean that the application does not proceed to be underwritten.