36 Skyline | Edition 7 | Winter 2024

At Virgin Money we love figuring out how to say‘ yes’ to good quality cases, despite it sitting outside of our standard lending policy.

Did you know, all our BDMs have a hotline to our Senior Underwriters to figure out how to say ' yes '!

Our Senior Underwriters have the ability to take a view and underwrite manually for special scenarios that don’ t fit neatly in a box. Whether it’ s for self-employed, gaps in contracts or incomes that need a special look, let us know and we’ ll see if we can work some magic.

We’ ll speak directly to our Underwriters before you send in the application to see how we can make things happen.

Our tailored common-sense approach, coupled with direct access to our empowered underwriting team, can be a winning combination for you and your clients. Here are some recent examples:

Our first case study is with Virgin Money where with a Limited Company Director receiving a Director’ s salary, as well as holding a 5 % share in the business. Due to the nominal shareholding, we would usually only use the Director’ s salary for assessment. However, with over 10 years tenure as a share-holding Director, our underwriters were happy to consider the sustained success and profitability of the established high turnover business, to take account of the applicant’ s share of net profit after tax, and say‘ Yes’.

Another Virgin Money example of where our underwriting team were able to say‘ yes’ to a good quality case, despite it sitting outside our standard lending policy. This week, it’ s a 90 % LTV residential purchase for a Doctor with only 6 months variable pay in current role, which was referred to our underwriters following the applicant’ s recent move from permanent NHS employment to locum work.

Our team were reassured by the applicant’ s established track record in a similar role, coupled with the fact they’ re operating in an industry with strong locum demand. This, aided by the provision of sufficient supporting information, resulted in our underwriters being pleased to conclude that the locum income could continue to sustain the loan requested.

Another Virgin Money example of our underwriting team saying‘ yes’ to a good quality case – this time the applicant was in the process of increasing their shareholding to 100 %.

This was a residential purchase at around 50 % LTV and the applicant was separating from their partner. Both the applicant and their partner were 50 % shareholders in the business; however, their partner was not actively contributing to the business profitability.

This appeared reasonable based on the nature of the business. Due to the overall profile of the customer and their business, by exception we agreed to using 100 % of the profits. We asked the aviser to supply confirmation from the accountant confirming the second shareholder had been removed, and that this wouldn’ t impact the running of the business. The client was delighted their adviser could deliver the outcome they’ d hoped for.