Family BS, which is part of the National Counties Building Society, has successfully pioneered a fresh approach to lending which makes better use of a family’s combined strength to help younger members get a foot on the housing ladder.
According to Tony Salentino, director at Complete FS, the relationship encompasses the proposition from Family and its parent National Counties.
He said: “Family Building Society along with their parent National Counties have a combined product range that helps to address a number of challenges with which brokers come to us, particularly in relation to first-time buyers and at the other end of the spectrum, helping clients borrow into retirement.
“Mutual building societies have already demonstrated how resilient and innovative they can be since the credit crunch and it is good to see another society taking a positive approach to helping customers with issues which are ignored by other mainstream lenders.”
Cammy Amaira, head of intermediary sales at Family Building Society, added: “The Family Mortgage was designed specifically to allow family members to help first-time buyers by providing security and offsetting facilities.
“As home ownership becomes an ever more distant dream for younger borrowers, the fact that we can offer loans up to 95% of a property’s value is significant and, with the benefit of offsetting, you won’t get a lower monthly payment anywhere on a 95% loan.
“And when it comes to lending into retirement, while some lenders simply rely on an application form ‘check box’ and credit score, we use a common sense approach taking into account the applicant’s individual circumstances. In other words, we take the time and effort to see the bigger picture – about as far away as you can get from the ‘computer says no’ approach of other lenders.”
