RIP the self employed mortgage
With the recently introduced responsible lending directive, the final nail has been well and truly put into the self cert mortgage market.
Not so long ago, the self employed sub contractors and small business owners where the darlings of the UK entrepreneurial movement – breaking new barriers, creating new jobs and forming the foundation of an Online Britain.
It now seems that the banking crisis has impacted on the self employed wealth creators the hardest, banks dont want to lend in general, and in particular they have no apetite to lend to the self employed whatsoever, even if it is as safe as houses! So where does this leave the self employed when it comes to personal finance going forward?
When an adviser attempts to source a mortgage for a self employed person, and clicks the “self employed” and “self certification” buttons – the screen then showing number of mortgages avalaible is ZERO – A BIG FAT ZERO!
Now we have been advised this weekend about the new bad bank being launched by the Govt . The new bad bank has been created to roll the now deemed toxic self cert mortgages into, which I can tell you, will run into millions of mortgages.
Now I am all for cleaning up the balance sheets of the banks, and it makes sense to segment the toxic risks within our banking system, but we have the scary prospect that if you are self employed, the computer will automatically SAY NO for any personal finance application, whether this be a loan, credit card or the most important commitment a mortgage.
Self employed people relocate more often than employed, especially if they are contractors, so what do they do now ? these persons are going to be forced to rent and if they sell their house and relocate again, they might not be able to get a mortgage in the forseeable future, mobility in the mortgage market has basically disappeared for the self employed.
What Trumpo would like to see is a serious and honest debate about the self employed mortgage market, particularly with regards to the Govt promoted bad bank scenario. I think we have many people in whitehall with questionable mortgage market knowledge trying to put square mortgage pegs into round mortgage holes. Being self employed does not mean you are a toxic risk and needed to be bundled into a toxic bad bank scenario, which I fear is happening right now to millions of people without their knowledge.
Over the coming months letters will be arriving on peoples doormats, saying your mortgage is now with a good part of the bank or a bad part of the bank - then watch those sparks fly….
The majority of self employed, particualrly those with young families and limited equity in their home, will be put into the bad bank – this puts a whole new slant on social mobility.
This one will run for a long time.
Your self employed Trumpo.
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