It has been a week to remember when it comes to buy-to-let mortgage lenders, as there have been multiple announcements from companies concerning the management and running of their businesses. Firstly, Nationwide has announced that its buy-to-let lending subsidiary The Mortgage Works will no longer be offering mortgages to landlords that have tenants which receive housing benefits.
It is believed that The Mortgage Works is trying to distance itself from landlords with tenants that receive housing benefits due to the fact that as of April the welfare reforms will come into effect. The reforms will lead to many housing benefit recipients having the amount they receive capped in 2014-2015 as the government will only increase them by one per cent and not against inflation. Furthermore, many tenants may end up having the amount the receive cut if they are found to have a ‘spare room’ in their property, and all tenants will now receive their housing benefits directly instead of them being paid to their landlords as is the case now.
All these changes in the welfare reforms may have fuelled concern from Nationwide, leading to them making their decision. Meanwhile, Keystone Buy-to-Let Mortgages has recently appointed Julie Priest as their new business manager, who has joined the team after spending thirty years in the mortgage market and several years running her own company. Ms Priest will now be in charge of helping place deals for professional landlords looking for more complex residential investments such as HMOs, multi-units, and applications for limited company capacity.
Discussing her new role, Ms Priest said: “I am looking forward to joining the Keystone team and working with some new and familiar faces. I’m ready for the challenge and Keystone’s unique offering to professional landlords seems a perfect fit will my skill set and enthusiasm.” Landlords who mainly deal in the buy-to-let sector need to make sure that they are keeping up to date with the changes occurring in the lending industries, especially as this will have a knock on effect on the prices of their current properties and whether they can invest in more in the future. Furthermore, if any landlords want to know more about the new welfare reforms and how they will affect them they should contact their landlord insurance provider or local council.