The borrower contacted Mortgage Lane to discuss their options for a residential remortgage. In the initial conversation we discussed their intentions and reasons for carrying out a remortgage at this time.

It was discussed that the borrower was currently renting near their ex-marital home to be close to their children. However, since realising they did not have the affordability to be making such a commute to work, they decided to move back home.

The security to be remortgaged was a buy to let property the borrower already owned which was being rented out to close family members. The borrower wanted to remortgage from buy to let to residential where upon completion, they would all reside. There would be no additional borrowing involved in this transaction, and they only required the loan amount to cover the existing balance, known as a like for like remortgage.

As the client was an exisiting customer of Mortgage Lane, we checked their documents to make sure we had all the up-to-date information to start our search into the best avenue for this remortgage.

Once we gathered all the information we required, we started the sourcing process with completing a Mortgage Broker Tools entry, this allowed us to calculate the client’s maximum affordability when taking into consideration their income, debt and current expenditure.

It was discussed and agreed that the borrower’s sister (who resided at the property) would come onto the mortgage application if affordability fell short as a single applicant. On review of the overall affordability, we advised the borrower that we would require applicant 2 to be added onto the mortgage to help boost affordability to the loan amount required.

When sourcing there were multiple factors that we had to run through with the affordable lenders to ensure it would fit criteria. These factors included;

• Overall Scenario
• Professional Sports Player
• Fixed Term Contract
• Non-dependants residing in security property but not a part of the mortgage.
• Credit commitments to be repaid.

To ensure efficiency we made a sourcing document which included all the responses we received so we could narrow down the best lender for this case.

From our findings, Monmouthshire Building Society were the best option for the client as they could consider all aspects (subject to underwriting and valuation), while offering generous affordability and a competitive rate.

This particular lender also offered products with low products fees, free valuations and free legal service, which is beneficial to the client as it reduces upfront costs.

It was crucial to this case to keep the monthly repayments as low as possible – proceeding with the maximum term of 30 years allowed us to do this.

The client advised that they were happy to proceed with the terms illustrated, and the application was submitted and accepted with Monmouthshire Building Society. Unfortunately, a few weeks into the underwriting process, an issue with how the borrower’s salary was deposited into their bank account come to light and the lender declined the application, along with other factors that made the case fall out of criteria. Despite our best efforts to overturn the case, Monmouthshire would not change their decision.

When we went back to the drawing board to provide the borrower with the next best option, we had to be mindful of lenders criteria surrounding debts being repaid. The borrower had recently repaid a large sum of debt to help their overall affordability; however, we required a lender who would not factor the debt into affordability to allow us to achieve enough borrowing to cover the existing mortgage. After discussions with multiple lenders to ensure no further issues would arise, Principality were the best option to proceed with.

The borrower confirmed that they were happy to proceed with the new terms presented and the application was submitted straight away. The underwriting process got off to a positive start and we were able to satisfy all of the lender’s requirements such as providing them with any supporting documents they required.

In underwriting the borrower confirmed that they wish to put down an extra £100,000 towards the repaying the exisiting mortgage as they had received money from selling their old residential home after their divorce was finalised. This meant we would only required a loan amount of £66,582 – Looking at the market at that time, Principality were still the best overall cost option when reducing the loan amount. This was amended on the lender’s portal, and we continued to proceed on this basis.

The product with Principality come with a free valuation, which was instructed as soon as the loan amount was reduced. This was a desktop valuation which was returned as what was expected and satisfied quickly.

After satisfying a few more queries from the underwriter, the application was put into final review stage and once the final review took place the lender issued the mortgage offer shortly after. We emailed the borrower to advise that the mortgage offer was issued and to settle any broker fee that were oustanding. The borrower was extremely grateful for the work completed on this case and was happy we had finally got a mortgage offer after such a lengthy process.

The offer was issued to the borrowers Solicitors and received two days later. We continuously checked in with the Solicitor to ensure completion was on track and to be of assistance if we could. This case completed on the 29^th of January, which was a month after the offer was issued.

The overall process took a around 5 months from sourcing to completion. Due to the many different factors of the case, this remortgage took longer than expected however the borrower and us were happy with the final outcome.