United Trust Bank Update

UTB Mortgages For Intermediaries: Product Update

Further to our product update on Tuesday this week, we have continued to see extreme volatility across the mortgage market. Many lenders have withdrawn or repriced entire product ranges with some pausing new lending entirely. This is being widely reported in both the industry and national press.

It is likely that during this period of uncertainty, the market will see large swings in demand from Customers and Brokers for products from those mortgage lenders who are still active. At UTB we are committed to the specialist mortgage market, but with so few lenders now offering a complete range, we are expecting high demand for our products. To manage this, I would like to confirm the following:

• We will continue to honour the old interest rates on all Full Mortgage Applications submitted to us on or before 27 September. I can today confirm we will be extending the date by which a mortgage offer must be produced on these old interest rates, from the 11 October (that we first said on Tuesday), to the 31 October.
  
  
•  In our normal process, Report on Titles are requested from our Solicitor panel late in the underwriting process, instead we have requested these on our full internal pipeline already. We hope this will reduce the risk of delays later in the process.
  
  
• With immediate effect, we are now requesting Applicants download and complete their ID and security checks through the UTB Chat Hub App once income and affordability is confirmed. Again, moving this activity earlier in the underwriting process will reduce the risk of delays later on.
  
  
• We have also discussed the current operating environment with our Surveyor panel, who will continue to support new instructions to the best of their ability.
  
  
• We would remind you that to qualify as a Full Mortgage Application, each case must be submitted with the minimum underwriting requirements as stated on the DIP. This will change from case to case, but will never be less than Proof of Income and a Loan Purpose Form. Any applications without the minimum underwriting requirements will be returned, to allow us to concentrate on progressing applications with the correct documents uploaded.
  
  
• We have delayed all non-essential activity across our underwriting teams, to ensure that we have the maximum capacity possible. We are anticipating an increase in new applications due to other lenders withdrawing from the market, and also understand the need to prioritise tasks and post on the existing underwriting pipeline so that offers can be produced before the extended 31 October deadline.
  
  
• To help manage these priorities, we will be setting an SLA of 5 days for new Full Mortgage Applications received from 30 September, as well as any new Post received on those cases. We plan to keep this SLA in place for one month. Whilst longer than the 1 day turnaround you are used to from UTB, we want to ensure as many Customers as possible with lower interest rates on expiring products can receive their mortgage offers before 31 October. Any cases not offered by this deadline will need to be resold onto new products at higher interest rates.

Our current products, which were confirmed on Tuesday and launched today, are below.