The Dudley Building Society has removed all upper age restrictions across its entire product range.
The move is designed to help older clients, who might not have qualified to buy, downsize or remortgage.
Other criteria changes include:
- Properties above four storeys now accepted
- Second home LTV increases from 70% to 80%
- Clarity upon family members that can be used as guarantors
- Interest-only repayment vehicles now include sale of business, cash savings and sale of other assets
The Dudley Building Society is the only society to deal exclusively through the intermediary market.
Jonathan Moore, head of credit at Dudley Building Society, said: “For too long, older borrowers have struggled to find mortgage availability, and those options which did exist generally treated these borrowers as second class citizens by forcing them to borrow from a limited range. We consider all borrowers to be equally worthy of consideration, and by making our entire range available, we will demonstrate that we do not discriminate by age.
“In our opinion, cases from older borrowers offer no more risk than younger ones, providing that underwriting is carried out by professional human underwriters. However sophisticated credit scoring becomes, when dealing with more complex cases, there really is no substitute for human consideration. We are confident that we can provide a strong proposition for brokers with older clients.”