Traditionally, a customer missing a mortgage payment is a sign of financial distress. However, when the Mortgage payment holiday scheme was announced by the government last March, it was taken up by more than 1.8 million.

Previous track record in employment and managing finances is usually a good indicator of future ability to pay a mortgage and so the large high street lenders have built sophisticated algorithms capable of making lending decisions at scale.

A global pandemic, however, causes huge disruption to this predictability. Everyone has been affected by Covid, but it has impacted some people’s finances more than others. Traditional trends can no longer be relied upon to make decisions and many more cases need to be assessed individually to understand the true impact of the virus on customer’s circumstances.

Often the Covid impact of a business will be linked to the industry it operates in, with hospitality and leisure understandably being the hardest hit. But every case is unique – and so underwriting applications from the self-employed becomes all the more complicated. So where does that leave us? Find out more here.

If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call on 0800 368 1833.