It is the second time the lender has withdrawn products at very short notice inside a month; although the fact that advisers were notified after the products had disappeared caused particular consternation this time around.
One broker told Mortgage Introducer: “This product withdrawal, practically informing brokers after the product has been pulled, shows a total lack of management controls and forecasting.
"Lenders should have plans in place to look at their funding situation, but appear to be ignoring it and pulling at the last minute, with little or no warning.”
Brokers were emailed this morning with the news, saying that a new range would be available from Thursday.
This repriced range also included a number of criteria changes, such as reduced maximum loans and loan-to-values, a lowered age limit for applicants and removal of self-cert and buy-to-let options on some or all of its products respectively.
In response, a spokesperson for Preferred said: “We can confirm that we have had to readjust our product range at short notice.
"However, as recognition of the current market volatility, we launched a funds booking process in January that has received positive feedback from brokers/packagers.
“It has been specifically designed to give intermediaries a level of certainty that, once a booking has been made, funds would be available for their customers when their fully packaged application was submitted - subject to the application meeting our standard underwriting criteria.
"We are still giving a 30 calendar day deadline for brokers / packagers to get their fully packaged applications to us."
