NatWest for Intermediaries has released a product update. For their latest products visit the product page on their website or the news section of their intermediary website. A summary of the changes is below. Contact us for more information.
Announcement – Foreign Nationals policy update
As part of the Brexit transition, EU, EEA or Swiss citizens living in the UK before 31 December 2020 must apply to the EU Settlement Scheme to continue living in the UK after 30 June 2021.
To ensure we are supporting customers who were living in the UK before 31 December 2020, and in line with leading competitors, we are making a further update to simplify our foreign national policy.
From 1st January 2021, the treatment of customers with ‘Pre-Settled’ status will be aligned with customers who receive ‘Settled’ status.
What you need to know:
- EU, EEA or Swiss citizens who apply to the EU Settlement Scheme will receive either ‘Settled’ or ‘Pre-Settled’ status
- From 1st January 2021, customers who receive either ‘Settled’ or ‘Pre-Settled’ status will be subject to normal residential and buy to let policy and lending criteria
- EU, EEA or Swiss citizens who lived in the UK before 31st December 2020 need to have received confirmation of their “Settlement Status” (Settled or Pre-Settled) before entering a mortgage application for new lending
- Irish citizens, or customers already with indefinite leave to remain, do not need to apply under the EU Settlement Scheme and therefore will be subject to normal residential and buy to let policy and lending criteria
Pipeline Cases
- Any applications for EU, EEA or Swiss nationals submitted prior to 1st January 2021 should follow the policy at time of applying and continue to treat these customers as having permanent right to reside.
- Any applications submitted from 1st January 2021 should follow the new policy.
What you need to do:
- Familiarize yourself the FAQs on our latest news page, so that you can ensure your customer meets our eligibility criteria when applying for a mortgage
- Request evidence of the customer’s settlement status or indefinite leave to remain where required. This can be via a copy of their ‘Settled’/’Pre-Settled’ decision letter.
- We will require you to include a copy of the customers ‘Settled/Pre Settled’ decision letter as part of their application packaging.
Porting reverting to 4 month window
What’s happening
This communication is to confirm changes to our existing porting process. These changes include reverting the porting refund window to a period of 4 months, as reflected in our Mortgage Illustrations.
What you need to know
Several policy rules relating to porting will be clearly shown on our “Lending Criteria” page.
These include:
- Applications fully submitted prior to 31st January will have a 6 month porting window, as per the current Covid-19 linked extension
- Applications submitted on or after 1st February will have a 4 month porting window, as per the customer’s mortgage illustration
As a reminder we do not consider porting applications where the customer’s existing mortgage has already been redeemed on/before the date that they apply for the new mortgage OR they already own/co-own the property they are seeking a new application on.
What you need to do
Please familiarise yourself with our updated porting criteria which can be found on the NatWest Intermediary Solutions Lending Criteria page.