As the Covid-19 pandemic continues and with the majority of the UK in the midst of a 3rd national lockdown, we remain committed to supporting you and your customers by lending responsibly and ensuring affordability can be demonstrated.

Here’s a reminder of how we assess income and what to do if your customers’ income is affected.

New applications

We continue to only accept earned income (relating to the hours worked by the applicant) when assessing affordability.

Existing applications

If your customers’ income has reduced since the application was submitted, please follow the below guidance:

Pre Offer:

• Remove any impacted income (i.e. income that is now furloughed) from the assessment and re-submit the application for a decision.

Post Offer:

• Provide evidence via a letter from your customers’ employer or their latest payslip showing the reduced income.
• The application will be re-assessed based on the reduced income, if the application remains affordable then no further action will be required.
• If the application becomes unaffordable, based on the reduced income, we will provide guidance on whether the application can still progress.

Application amendments (pre and post Offer)

If you are submitting an application amendment and the case has to be resubmitted for a decision for a new Offer, the guidance for ‘Existing  applications’ shown above must be followed. When reassessing the lending, please ask your customer if there is any change to their circumstances. If the customer has been furloughed since the original assessment, the impacted income must be removed i.e. all furlough income must be removed for pre Offer amendments and only the reduced income can be used for post Offer amendments.

If there has been no impact to your customer’s financial situation then the application will proceed as normal, however we may ask for further documents to ensure the income is sustainable.

Thank you for your continued support during these challenging times.