September 2023 Newsletter

By Jane Atkins , Head of Intermediary Sales?

Welcome to the first of my monthly round-ups, a summary of news and updates on what Kensington are doing to help make your lives easier, and say yes to more of your clients.?

1. We’ve made some great updates to our lending criteria:

• AGE: Lower minimum age to 18 on Residential, Buy to Let now 21 and 18 for second applicant, Limited Company PG’s remain at 21.? Remember, there is NO maximum age, either at application or end of mortgage term on our BTL’s.
• DEPOSIT: We can now accept an intercompany loan as a form of deposit for Limited Company where ownership/directorship are identical.??
• OFFERS: Standard offer period now 180 days from valuation. New Build can still be extended by up to a further 180 days (further documentation will be required)
• DOCUMENTS: We can now accept digital signatures on customer declaration (Limited Company still require wet signatures)
• TENURE: Reduced lease term, now 70 years at completion
• FOREIGN NATIONALS: we can now accept EU pre-settled status (with gov.uk share code)
• DECLARATION: now valid for 12 months

2. As well as lowering a number of rates across all ranges, we launched a number of Special rates, for both landlord and owner occupier clients

• Residential remortgage Specials,? up to 75% LTV across Select, Core and Resi 12 credit criteria with incentives including choice or cashback or free legals
• Buy to Let (including Limited Company) Specials for 2 year fixed rates with option of 5% or ￡5k fee

3. We have continued our 1-day SLA of reviewing new and uploaded documents, a record held for 21 months now

• We continue to provide 48 hours’ notice for any standard rate changes, and 24 hours’ notice on our special rates

4. On 12th September we held our most recent webinar, ‘Explaining the inner workings of the mortgage market’

• My colleague Eloise hosted the event, featuring Alex Maddox, our Capital Markets Director, Andrew Montlake, Managing Director at Coreco and William Hobbs, Managing Director and Chief Investment Officer in Private Bank & Wealth Management at Barclays
• The webinar explored economic trends set to shape the future of our world, as well as a deeper dive into what happens at the Bank of England MPC meetings, and the importance of this to what we do. If you missed it, you can watch the Webinar in full or read the summary blog shared on our K-hub.??

5. Finally, we shared our latest innovation: The Portfolio. Six mortgage bundles designed to make it even easier for you to find the right solutions for your clients. If you haven’t seen the new ad, watch it now! And learn more about the mortgage bundles on our website.

Looking back on the month of September, it was a busy one! As always, if you’d like to discuss anything mentioned above, or have a client that we could help you with, please do not hesitate to contact your local BDM, who will be happy to see you physically, virtually or over the phone.