When it comes to financing large complex buy-to-let portfolios, selecting the right lender is crucial. At West One, our individual approach to underwriting means that we review each case on its own merits, ensuring we support clients to secure the purchase or remortgage that they require in a smooth and timely fashion.
This case study highlights how our flexible approach allowed us to support a large portfolio landlord in a complex situation.
An experienced landlord with an existing portfolio of 35 properties with a total value of £11,435,000.
The borrower had an outstanding mortgage balance of £7,339,248 (64.2% LTV) across the whole portfolio and the mortgage was needed to purchase 8 out of the 35 of the properties – a mixture of 5 standard residential properties and 3 HMO properties. The 8 properties were owned in the borrower’s personal name and the requirement was to transfer them into the limited company that had been formed to hold the portfolio. There were two other lenders also supporting the clients move from personal to limited company structure, benefitting from the portfolio incorporation relief rules.
The ability to take a pragmatic and manual underwriting approach enabled us to look past some adverse credit registered on the borrower and still proceed with our W1 range of products, as it happened, during the application the client was able to get the adverse removed.
Due to the personal tax liability associated with the portfolio, it made sense to move the properties into a limited company structure for more efficient tax planning. The client had taken appropriate advice from professionals and was able to utilise the incorporation relief process, allowing the transfer to take place without the need to pay stamp duty or Capital Gains Tax on the transfer. All parties remained in close communication and the deal was processed quickly and effectively thanks to the team’s expert knowledge of large complex portfolios and a strong broker/lender relationship.
West One are experts in complex BTL cases and understand that every portfolio is different and need to be treated as such. Each case is treated on its merit and the team of experts applies a common-sense approach to credit risk.
All cases are manually underwritten, and, in this case, it allowed us to take a view on the outstanding adverse credit registered against a separate company and still proceeded with product rates.
The borrower was extremely pleased with the outcome and the introducing broker complimented us on our ability to take a view and proceed whilst issues were outstanding. The client has subsequently returned to us with a further 12 enquiries, 2 have now proceeded to offer stage.
We've been very impressed with the efficient and logical underwriting from all of you guys and I can ensure you that many more cases will follow!