West One has today announced criteria enhancements for residential mortgage customers. Core product standard LTIs have been increased from 5.0 times income to 5.5 times income for purchases and remortgages across all product credit tiers. The change in LTI limits reflects the specialist lender’s commitment to making homeownership more accessible for those who are not adequately served through traditional lending products.
The uplift to 5.5 times LTI has also been applied to Right to Buy purchases, but does not extend to Shared Ownership products, which have recently received their own improvements instead. These improvements do not affect the higher LTI limits available on Extra products.
The specialist lender has also made improvements to its Automated Valuation Model (AVM) criteria for residential mortgage customers. These changes are designed to accelerate the remortgage journey for brokers and their clients and are applicable to all Core products from the Premier, Platinum and Prime Plus plans.
The maximum loan size eligible for an AVM has increased from £300,000 to £500,000, and the maximum LTV has risen from 70% to 75%. West One's underwriting team will run the AVM during the early stages of the application process and will advise brokers directly on whether a case can proceed without a physical valuation, removing unnecessary delays and keeping cases moving.
Commenting on the AVM enhancements, Marie Grundy, Managing Director of Mortgages at West One, stated, “Our aim is to make the remortgage process as smooth and efficient as possible for both brokers and their clients. The improvements to our AVM criteria will complement our innovative free fast track legal remortgage process which also includes the acceptance of electronically signed mortgage deeds, meaning more customers can benefit from a faster, lighter-touch process.”
