Stephen Foden, CEO of Spring Move, said he believed if a client was willing to stick with the previous occupier’s mortgage provider, the lender could supply an instant offer without the need for a valuation.
Foden explained: “If the person chooses to maintain their mortgage with the same provider, that lender knows what risk they are taking on by giving a mortgage on that property. Therefore, providing the products are similar, they can retain the existing mortgage on that house and you don’t need to do a valuation, physical or through an AVM, to give them an instant mortgage offer.” Foden added this would mean the risk would be mitigated for the lender, as it would eliminate the need for a valuation and they could get the offer out as quickly as possible.
Eddie Goldsmith, senior partner at Goldsmith Williams, said it was an interesting idea. He said: “At the moment we all know you can’t switch a mortgage from one person to another but this seems to be a fantastic idea for some circumstances. The lender may want to have a valuation to check the property if the mortgage was taken out ten or 15 years ago but if it was only three years ago and the loan-to-value isn’t too high, I can see it working.”
However, Mehrdad Yousefi, head of intermediary mortgages at Alliance & Leicester, Said:: “The credit risk policy dictated by the Bank of England and the Building Societies Association means you have to have a valuation for every piece of lending you do. Also, if the valuation is more than two years old then there might be changes to the conditions which would make that valuation defunct. Finally, with the introduction of the Energy Performance Certificate, you would need to do a valuation to get this. However, the ideas has legs but it needs to overcome these obstacles first.”
