Support for self-employed as Kent Reliance revise mortgage criteria

In light of the growing self-employed work force, Kent Reliance has revised its lending criteria to accept mortgage applications from self-employed professionals who have been trading for a minimum of 12 months.

Previously, Kent Reliance only accepted applications from self-employed professionals who had been trading for 36 months, but the lender has said that there are many credit-worthy applicants within this demographic who are not supported by the majority of mortgage lenders.

Kent Reliance lists doctors, lawyers and accountants among the group of people it considers to be ‘professional’ applicants, along with others who hold professional qualifications.

Applicants will have to submit evidence of a minimum 12 month’s business history, in the same sector as their current occupation and will be asked to provide an accountant’s projection of a second year’s income.

The Bank of England’s 2015 Q3 quarterly bulletin has recorded 700,000 new self-employed professionals since 2008.

The total of self-employed workers in the UK now stands at 4.5 million, or nearly 15% of the UK’s workforce.

Adrian Moloney, Director of Sales, Kent Reliance for Intermediaries, said:

“The self-employed are making up an increasing proportion of the modern workforce. Despite the financial success of many within this group, this hasn’t yet been reflected in the mortgage market. We are looking to change this, supporting self-employed professionals, and their brokers looking to place these cases.

“We’ve had feedback from brokers that they find these type of loans especially hard to process, so we are widening our criteria to increase our flexibility in this market, which will aid both distributors and their clients.

These changes support our commitment to be a specialist, personal and flexible lender for those who are not effectively served by mainstream providers.”

3rd March 2016