CHL Mortgages Announces Changes

CHL Mortgages, the intermediary-only specialist buy-to-let lender, has announced criteria changes to its specialist buy-to-let criteria whilst also confirming that it has added its criteria to the Knowledge Bank platform.

Enhancements to its buy-to-let lending criteria are as follows:

• Inter-company loan deposits from connected parties now accepted
• High/Additional rate taxpayer ICR reduced from 145 per cent to 140 per cent
• Development exposure limits in any block increased to:
  • Blocks of up to 6 units: Maximum of 6 units per block
  • Blocks of 7 to 20 units: Maximum of 10 units per block; and
  • Blocks of more than 20 units: Highest of 10 units or 20 per cent per block

In addition to these criteria changes, CHL Mortgages’ specialist buy-to-let criteria is now live on Knowledge Bank. This move represents the next step in CHL’s phased return to the specialist BTL market as it looks to utilise Knowledge Bank’s technology to further extend its reach across the intermediary marketplace.

Knowledge Bank is a multi-award-winning mortgage criteria search system. It holds the full criteria of over 200 lenders and has in excess of 120,000 individual pieces of criteria making it the largest database of its kind anywhere in the UK.

Ross Turrell, commercial director, CHL Mortgages, said: “The response to our return to the specialist BTL market has been overwhelmingly positive and following feedback from our initial distribution partners, we are making these improvements to lending policy in order to attract more buy-to-let customers.

In particular, we know the change to accept inter-company loan deposits will make a lot more limited company cases viable and these changes demonstrate our willingness to adapt according to customer and broker needs.

Our launch with Knowledge Bank represents a logical step in our plan to engage with the intermediary community in a sensible, structured and comprehensive manner. Knowledge Bank has firmly cemented its status as the place for intermediaries to source all relevant criteria-related information and this will prove to be a valuable outlet in our overall distribution strategy.”

Matthew Corker, operations director of Knowledge Bank, added: “It’s been great to see CHL Mortgages return to the specialist buy-to-let arena in recent months and expand their distribution to reach a wider number of brokers.

Whilst working closely with the CHL team over these last few weeks, it’s clear to see the level of knowledge and experience they have, covering some of the more specialist market niches such as HMO/MUFB and products for portfolio landlords. I have no doubt they will be well searched on our platform and a valuable addition to our users.”