Knowledge Bank Webinar | Specialist Finance for Foreign Nationals

One of our Regional Sales Manager’s Zahira Fayyaz participated in the Knowledge Bank Lender Spotlight webinar. Zahira spoke about Specialist Finance for Foreign Nationals.

Over the past few months, we’ve noticed a rise in offshore clients who are returning to the UK property market and ready to get their property investment plans back on track.

Our latest online event, in partnership with Knowledge Bank, focuses in on

• Rising trends for foreign nationals in 2022
• How specialist finance can help foreign nationals and the complexities they’re facing
• Recognising when to bring in a specialist lender

Transcipt of the webinar

Shall begin. So, good afternoon. Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us, on today’s lender spotlight with Market Financial Solutions. My name’s Jordan, and I’m the lender relationship manager at Knowledge Bank. I am joined by Zahira Fayyaz, the senior BDM for MFS this mo… this afternoon even.

Am I at it again? MFS offer a range of bridging loans from their in house funds, and more recently, buy-to-let mortgage products, to provide more options between bridging loan exits or initial purchases and future long term financing. Zahira will soon discuss the trends that they’ve spotted for foreign nationals in 2022 so far, how specialist finance can help foreign nationals with the complexities that they’re facing, and how to recognize when to bring in a specialist lender. We’ll then move on to Q&A where I’ll be putting your questions to live. So if you do have any questions, or cases that you’re looking to place, then let us know in the Q&A at the bottom of the screen.

We’ll answer as many as we can, and we’ll also pass them over to MFS afterwards so they can get back to you direct. There’ll be 3 polls throughout the session today. The first one has already happened, when you came through the door, so thank you for answering that. And if you could answer the other 2 as they appear, that would be fab. We should be here for around 45 minutes to an hour, and you will receive your confirmation of attendance email from Knowledge Bank over the next few days.

So, Zahira, good afternoon.

Good afternoon Jordan.

I have 3 questions, if that’s okay. Firstly so firstly, foreign nationals, what’s happening? Secondly, knock on effects, is there any knock on effects from what’s happening with that? And then 3rd and finally what differs you from other lenders that allows you to bring foreign nationals onto your platform?

Fantastic. Do you want me to go through it now with you? You can. You can go do your presentation and answer that first and we can come back to it after if you wish.

I mean I’m more than happy to answer it, but I think maybe I can kind of answer these questions as I go along in the presentation. Yeah. Absolutely. And then at the end, we can do a bit more of a comprehensive q and a. And, because the questions you’ve asked, we very much answer them throughout the presentation.

I think it will be very interesting for a lot of people as well. So I, so should we begin? Sure. Oh, fantastic. So let’s so hi, everybody.

Thank you, for allowing me to present to you today. I sincerely appreciate it. My name is Zara Faez. I am a senior BDM for MFS, and we are a specialist lender within the bridging and buy to let space. Today, I’ll be going through where we sit in terms of the market for foreign nationals, where we can support clients who are looking to purchase real estate in the UK.

And also as Jordan mentioned where we differentiate from other lenders potentially to support your clients. So I think, the first thing we’d like to do is trends for foreign nationals. I think the first thing at market Financial Solutions, what we do is we like to do a lot of market research and understand where the market is at. And I think one thing we’ve recently noticed is Halifax has released some data in regards to an average UK house price between January 2021 and January 2022 as you can see. And there’s been a significant increase just shy of 10% at 9.7 percent, an annual increase in terms of the average house price increasing, which is roughly around £24 a half £1,000.

Now this data is very, very imperative purely because we have come out of a pandemic essentially and to see such a strong significant growth in that time frame solidifies where the UK housing market is. And I think that has definitely been a very important factor in, purchases buying in the UK real estate market. We’ve also got some data from Knight Frank and, their data is released that the number of new prospective buyers in January 2022 jumped up to 54% above the UK’s 5 year average, which is a very, very steep number. And when you focus that more on a more microclimate in prime central London, that new buyer figure actually is up to 72%. And we believe that the blend of those people buying are predominantly more towards the foreign nationals because London has, is a very cosmopolitan city.

It held a lot of significance for businesses, for students, for, people looking to holiday. And I think what we’ve realized is we are going to see a growth trajectory within the housing market in the coming months and that’s going to come to fruition in, especially during q2, q3, q4, over this coming year. And I think it’s very much rooted in the fact that we’ve got foreign nationals who are definitely gearing up to come back to the UK housing market, and it could be for a number of factors. It could be from a buy to let investment perspective, you know, where people want to have buy to let investment properties in in the UK as it’s such a solid market reflected in the data that we’ve just spoken about. It could be to have a pere de terre in the city where people come in and have a have a have a holiday home in London, in the Cotswolds and wherever wherever wherever you want.

And I think as well, it’s it could be as well, especially particularly in prime central London, you do find a lot of investment where people purchase properties for their children who are studying in London. And also, as I said, it will kind of just move on to a buy to let investment because it has such a strong market and and the data is reflecting that. And I think moving forward, once going into 2022, our independent research also shows that 20% of existing property owners either intend to sell or buy a new home or buy an additional investment property. So what we’re finding is seasoned property developers from high net worth individuals, to to everyday people are coming in and looking to purchase, you know, a strong asset class, very much bricks and mortar related because they can identify the growth prospects of their investments in in the in the UK market, specifically in prime central London. So we’ve also as at MFS have actually seen that growth trajectory in the number of inquiries that we’re seeing from foreign nationals that have are looking to purchase in the UK.

So I think it has had a direct knock on effect in terms of the the market the strong housing market and then the kind of bounce back to London. The the interest, the figures, and and it’s all kind of amalgamated into 1 and and here we are today. And I think moving forward where MFS can really, you know, help, foreign nationals purchase and where specialist finance can really support them is is very much what I’d like to touch upon. So specialist finance is either a long or short term loan and it’s designed to support a non standard property potentially or equally non standard client. It can be kind of 2 remits that we can support if you do either fall into one of the categories.

So and our standard properties, you can see it could be prime central London, single high asset values in London, HMOs, more than 6 rooms, multi unit blocks, large mixed portfolios above 4,000,000, flats above commercial, x local authority, or even holiday lets. And a nonstandard client could be somebody with adverse effect credit. Sorry. No UK bank account or credit footprint. I think this point, I I will will touch upon in more detail as we go along, as this is very relevant to foreign nationals who are looking to purchase.

But, you know, your professionals, statuses or portfolios, offshore statuses, high, a a large funding requirement, or property development and trading businesses. So MFS can really support anyone who fits in those brackets or fits in those structures or property types and everything. So I think there might be a bit of a lack of knowledge in terms of where we can support and I think this seminar will really allow you to understand that we actually do allow a diverse range of products and and circumstances to allow us to lend and and and be happy to go through some more q and a’s, later on. So a lot of complexities that Borrow National face is they can’t necessarily get funding purely because of their credit footprint or their status or what have you. They can’t get it done quickly because a lot of lenders are quite apprehensive.

I mean, from our perspective, we can have funds with the client within as little as 3 days. We don’t have a criteria where we differentiate essentially really from foreign nationals to UK nationals. When it comes to bridging finance there are certain things that we we wouldn’t necessarily need like a UK bank account, but on a buy to let mortgage or a 2 to 3 year term product, there will be a requirement for that. But more than happy to to to go further into detail with that. We also as mentioned in the previous slide, we can do a lot of complex deals, structures, natures.

So we’re very, very flexible. We have a very flexible approach to when we look at a deal. I think the kind of the best way to would I would I would say is when a deal comes through, we review each deal on a case by case basis. It’s not a computer says no model. It’s very much that let’s see how we can support the client.

Let’s see how we can make this fit for purpose. Let’s see where we can support them as we are not restricted to covenants where because the current client the the client doesn’t have a UK footprint, we automatically says no. It’s it’s nowhere near that. We actually look at the deal. We’re very much bricks and mortar based, and we’ll let you see how we can help the client.

And I think the other thing is for our service is key. It’s absolute key when dealing within, our market. And for us, that means about being reliable and being trustworthy and building that transparent relationship with our brokers and our clients. So when we say yes, we mean it. And we support that because we do a lot of our underwriting upfront.

So how the process essentially works is if you have a deal, and you what we would typically do is you send it over to someone like myself, the BDM. We will review the deal for you. If we think it’s fit for purpose, we get it sent over to our underwriting team and we’ll get indicative sent out to you within a 4 hour SLA period. And at that point, we also do request information in order for us to take the deal to credit. And we do this because we do all our our underwriting upfront, which allows us to say yes.

And when we say yes, we mean it. So what that means is there’s not gonna be any huge tangible changes later on down the line. It’s very much the client, the broker, everybody’s on the same page right from the onset so that we move forward and we move forward quickly. And it allows us to be so much more efficient and build that, that, that, relationship and that confidence for all stakeholders involved. I’d like to go through a case study with yourself and this will kind of give you much more of a flavor in understanding how we mitigate risk, how we look at deals, how we can support the clients, and it’s it’s very much it kind of incorporates quite a lot of facets which a lot of foreign nationals do deal with in terms of, complex situations.

So what we did is we had a deal come through from Knight Frank Finance, and it was a hotel and spa. It required renovation. Now the complexity to this deal was it was a grade 2 listed building. 2 of the clients were based overseas and it required a tight deadline and where we came in at as a loan to value was at 50% loan amount at 943 against the property value of 1,900,000. This deal was very very interesting because when it first came through, the broker had got sight of this deal after it had been in the market for a while because a lot of lenders couldn’t get comfortable with the structure, with the listed building, and also, with some of other complexities that I’ll go through now.

So we had to move quickly to ensure that building regulations for the property were being upheld due to its grading as mentioned. There was also some there were some legal structures that we needed to get mitigated right on the onset regarding the lease. So we got our lawyers involved very, very quickly in order to ensure that it was very much fit for purpose, and it kind of plays into the point of us underwriting the deal upfront. So it’s not done at the latter end, and it just allows us to make a much more informed decision and it allows us to mitigate the deal very early on. And we took a commercial view on the asset and we’re we’re comfortable with the clauses because in terms of the actual asset, it’s beautiful building.

It just required, some renovations in terms of the way we approach the deal was much more holistic rather than just like a tick box exercise. And it allowed us to allow it allowed us to actually support the client when they really needed it. And we managed to do it very, very quickly. I think some of the feedback we got from the client was especially regarding the leases where a lot of lenders couldn’t get comfortable. We came in pretty much right on the onset to say, yep.

We’re we’re happy with this. We’re happy to move ahead. And it completely changed the the transaction from our perspective and also from the brokers because we worked very, very closely with her. She was fantastic. We ensured that all the parties remained updated and informed throughout the course of the completion throughout the whole process.

There was clear lines of communication, and we very much took a flexible approach and actually met the client’s deadlines. And it incorporated the fact that 2 of the clients weren’t even based in the UK. So we managed to get around that And it just allowed us to support them when they needed to to to purchase this property as soon as possible. So very, very, all the parties involved were happy and I think it just highlights the strength of MFS when it comes to dealing with some complex situations. We don’t have a model that says no.

We have a model that says how can we make this work essentially. So that was, a case study I wanted to go through with you as it as I said, as I mentioned, it incorporates many different facets of complex situations. And, to mention in terms of the foreign nationals, which is relevant to to this webinar, one was based in the Middle East and one was in South Asia. So it also allows you to understand the broad spectrum of countries that we can work with. And, we don’t have a, an issue where you could be in Hong Kong, you could be in India, you could be in France, in the US.

It’s very much about how the bricks and mortar value of the property stands, how we can make it work, and how we can lend to you. So I think MFS, where we differentiate from other lenders is our agile approach to looking at deals. So adaptation is key. This this market in specialist finance is a very dynamic ever changing market. So things can be different from today to into 2 weeks into 2 months.

So, I’m sure you all appreciate the issues that everybody can face. Once one day someone can say yes, the other day they say no. And, for us, it’s all about that communication. We provide a list of exactly what’s needed to get the case through. So when you bring the deal to myself, argument’s sake, as I said, we will send over, information that we need so we can take it to credit and it allows us to move very, very quickly.

And this is kind of the backbone in terms of our service. It’s very much based on being able to facilitate what the client needs and to do it right at the beginning. The other thing is as well is when you’re dealing with clients who live in different time zones, we’ve got people at hand when needed. We have, we have people working in in different cities. So it allows us to monitor and work to a, a very high standard of service to make sure that someone’s always at hand when needed.

We also have a very good solicitor panel and that allows us to ensure we can meet tight deadlines because we’re very much on the ball when it comes to managing in that relationship moving it forward. For us, service is key. So our solicitors very much honor our time scales, our tight deadlines, and it allows us to move quickly because especially if if you could you’ve got a client sitting in, Dubai for argument’s sake and, you know, notice has been served on the property they may have exchanged on and they need to move very quickly. We’ve got a 10 day of time frame to do it. We very much put our solicitors right on the forefront of that and get that moving quickly.

So it’s about having that relationship with the right stakeholders as well. So and we have perfected that purely because we’ve been around for over 15 years now and we’ve got a very good relationship with our solicitor panel. So, yeah, I think it’s it’s more about showing you how we can support you, not just saying, oh, we can do this and we’re doing that and how we do it essentially. So another thing I think in terms of foreign nationals and the difficulties that they may face is, what lenders won’t do and kind of the structures of where lenders kind of get a bit apprehensive when it comes to lending. So we have found from our research that holiday lets people get a bit uncomfortable with.

And the UK recently has seen a 40% jump in staycations in in in the UK alone post COVID. So we definitely understand that this market of holiday lets is is a is very growing market and definitely something that we can support because we understand the macroeconomic situation. We understand where the market sits, and we the information the information that we are familiar with and also moving and being agile, to the market and not necessarily being reactive, but proactive to the changes that are happening in 2022. So holiday led commercial, commercial properties, sometimes they don’t get comfortable with it. Foreign nationals, offshore companies or complex ownerships.

So that mentioned the case that we mentioned that was a complex ownership. Those 2 different foreign nationals from different, countries. They were set up in, an SPV that was not UK based, so we managed to get around that. Another thing that a lot of lenders don’t like to do is doing a loan to value a high loan to value, say up to 75% and high lending combined. So we can get comfortable with the higher lot the higher loan to value, the large loans.

There’s, we we can we can get very comfortable with that because for us it’s about supporting the client, but also making sure that the properties that we’re lending against are fit for purpose and they meet the necessarily stress test that we do. And, and finally, obviously clients with no UK footprint. I think this is the biggest issue that clients face, foreign nationals face when it comes to lend buying in the UK. So as mentioned before, we’re a specialist bridging lender so we can help you do purchase acquisitions, refinance, anything like that, or where you might need to do a bridge loan in order to simplify an ownership for argument’s sake or get planning in place. There’s so many different variables involved when it comes to doing a bridge.

And when it comes to doing something like that, we don’t need your, we don’t even need you to have a UK bank account for us. It’s about making sure that the asset is fit for purpose. So it’s all about ensuring that we can support you and underwrite right from the beginning. So we and and also I think when we underwrite right at the beginning, it allows us to find a solution for any potential complications that the deal has. And it just means that we’re all on the same page.

And it allows, you know, breathing space when needed, you know, when it comes to, more complex. So in terms of the case study that was mentioned before, it was to provide room for this to pay contractors and support clients with their future renovation works for the spa and everything. It could be so many different variables when it comes to anything that comes through. And I think the differentiation that you will have in terms of UK UK bank accounts is on our buy to let product. We do require a UK bank account, but there are several different options that you can use that just essentially needs an account that allows you to do a direct debit purely because the buy to let is a term product and it’s not a bridge where, it would need to be a a monthly direct debit would need to be paid.

So there is a slight differentiation between the two products and that is on the bridging. You don’t need a UK footprint or you don’t need a UK bank account. And on buy to let, equally, you do not require UK footprint, but you will require a bank account at time of completion, and that’s just to service the direct debit for for for the property. So if you see there, you can you can scan your phones onto the QR code and it allows you to download our comprehensive lending guides for our bespoke bridging finance and also for our specialist buy to let mortgages. When it comes to the overall picture of what a foreign national looks like, for us, there’s no issue in terms of what countries you are coming from, where you’re based, where you’re buying.

The only thing that I think needs to be quite apparent is we can’t lend to another asset abroad. So it will have to be a UK based asset whether it’s London or York or Manchester, Birmingham. It’s it’s it’s fine. We lend anywhere in mainland England and Wales. We don’t do Scotland, and we don’t do the islands around.

But if you are looking to purchase a property in England or Wales very much so we can help you with. And I think the only, not foreign nationals we may not be able to lend to are those who are on sanctioned countries list. However, as I said, we do look at every deal on a case by case basis. So please feel free to send them through, and we can still see how we can make it work for the client. Because for us, it’s about making sure that we’re flexible and we look at each deal on a comprehensive basis.

And I think that essentially concludes the presentation and please feel free to ask any questions. Fantastic. Thank you very much. Thank you Paul for getting the poll up there as well. So anyway, can you hear me?

I’ll take that as a no. So what I’m gonna do guys is I am going to send, the questions to Sayra as I read that. I can’t hear you, Julian, but I can see the chat box, so I’ll answer any questions through that. So There we go. There we go.

Is, I’ll read them out just so that we’re clear on both pages. So do you now lend in to clients from Pakistan? If so, how do you deal with those clients with no UK bank account? Can one be set up with a correspondence bank to their existing bankers in Pakistan? So yes.

Firstly, we do lend to clients in Pakistan. That is not a problem. If they are looking to do a bridge a bridging clone, then no. We wouldn’t require them to have a bank account set up. What we would do is we base it on that we can use their Pakistani bank accounts in order to do the deal.

That’s not a problem. The only thing they will require is solicitors who are based in the UK and a minimum of 2 SR registered solicitors. So that is essentially what we would just need. But if they do want to do a buy to let term product, then we would require them to set up a UK bank account. It we would not be able to use a Pakistani bank account unless the facility allows them to set up a direct debit mandate through their account, which in all honesty, I don’t think I have seen.

So it would be more beneficial for them to set up a basic account that allows them to just have a direct debit set up. They won’t need it for any other purpose. I hope that answers that question. Thank you. I’m talking like she can hear me.

Bear with me. So what I’ll do, is just follow-up, in our chat box. So bear with me 2 seconds guys, I’m juggling everything here. So we’ve got Rudy Okay. Who’s got a Middle East by Firstly, I’ll answer.

Would your debt to income ratio of over a 100%. So I think what I will say is for the buy to let perspective, we will require a 120 percent ICR stress test to be done. Now on our buy to let products, it’s a very exciting product because we don’t actually use a, we use a very creative model to do that. So how we do that is if the rental income actually doesn’t meet the stress test, we can use deferred interest up to 1 to 1.5 percent to allow us to make model more fit for purpose. We can also retain interest up to 9 months.

And if the rental income is still short, we can use top slicing. So for instance, let’s say for argument’s sake, you are a French national and you, you’re short by £20 a month for argument’s sake. We can use your income and that was where the the the bank account would come into to play. So we use 3 different metrics to make the ICR be hit, which is a 120% across the board that’s irrelevant or whether you’re a higher rate taxpayer, whether you’re on, for a national, whether you’ve got adverse, it’s it’s across the board. I hope that answers that question.

So the next question is do you have a minimum loan amount for your term loans? Yes. Our minimum loan amount is 150,000. Our maximum loan is 3,000,000 per property, but we can do a portfolio of up to £7,500,000 potentially £10,000,000 for 1 individual client on a referral basis. So minimum, a 150,000.

Maximum, 3,000,000 on one property. On a portfolio, we can go up to 7 and a half to 10,000,000. Next question. So Rudy has a Middle Eastern buyer based in Egypt purchasing 1.25 new build flat. Yeah.

We can do that. So Egypt is fine to lend to. That’s not a problem. If they’re purchasing 1.2 5,000,000 new build flat, we can do that either as a bridge if they wanna do it as, acquisition, or we can do it up to a time line up to 3 years. So it allows them to realize their actual income, and then should they wanna move on to a different a more a longer term 5 year, 10 year product up to them.

But also what we find is some to our clients are actually preferring the fact that these aren’t up to 5 years purely because it gives them flexibility should they wanna change their mind to sell the property or go on to a longer term. Several people are asking about Chinese nationals and Hong Kong based clients buying a buy set in the UK. Yep. That’s absolutely fine. We can lend to Chinese nationals and Hong Kong based clients.

Not a profit. Not a problem. We’ve actually doing a lot of, doing a lot of work with them in terms of London properties and also Manchester. There’s been a huge influx. So from our own internal inquiry system, we’re doing a lot with with Chinese and Hong Kong clients.

So Lindsay has a client who works for a global company and has been in the country for less than 1 year. Yeah. That’s fine. That’s actually probably easier because they probably have a UK footprint. Our buy to let term product is on a fortyed, basis.

So, I believe that that on the, barcodes, you would have been able to download them. And but there’s a 4 tier product. So, yeah, that’s not a problem. If you’ve been in the country for less than 1 year and you have a bank account, we can easily do a bridge or a buy to let. Not a problem.

So we have another question. Applicant is a foreign national but had a business in the UK. He has property purchased outright and wants to convert into buy to let and raise capital purchase to buy another buy to let. He’s from Kenya and has a business visa. Yeah.

That’s fine. We can do that. So if the client has businesses in the UK, he has credit footprint in the UK and his profits and he’s bought the property unencumbered, that’s absolutely fine, and wants to go into a buy to let and use the capital raise to purchase another buy to let, we can absolutely do that. If you’ve got if it’s from Kenya, that’s not a problem and has a business visa, that’s fine. We will obviously take you on how long the visa lasts for.

But in terms of foreign even if the visa expires, that’s not a problem because it’s based on the actual property values and the asset itself and, you know, the rental income and the ICR. So from a buy to let perspective, we can do the capital raise to purchase another one, and we can do 2 buy to lets for each property. So another question we’ve got is when it comes to visas, a few people have mentioned their clients are coming here on a special visa. What difference would the client being in the UK on a VisaMate rather than them being based in the country of origin and what visa status would you require? So if we’re doing a buy to let product actually, if we’re doing both bridging or buy to let, the visa isn’t necessarily an issue purely because it depends on the exit of what they’re going to do.

So if the property is going to be sold and they purchased a property a while ago and exit is is going to be sold and sell, that’s the visa won’t come into it. The visa will only really become more important is if the client was looking to service the debt on a bridging perspective. So even if they had a buy to let, we the visa wouldn’t make a difference because we don’t lend against the visa requirement. We lend, based on the property. So in terms of country of origin and what visa status, it doesn’t actually make a difference.

It only makes a difference if they are looking to service a debt on a bridging basis because we will require that to be in, we will require them to be here. But to it in all honesty, there’s a workaround for everything. So from that perspective, I wouldn’t I would not get too worried about what the visa status is and what country of origin. I think the only time the country of origin becomes important is if you are a sanctioned country for argument’s sake. So then we would have to take a view, but we would still say send the deal over and we’ll see what we can do for you.

So one of the client one of the people have said that one of the applicants does not have indefinite leave to remain. Yeah. That’s fine. That’s fine. It’s not a problem.

So we have a question. Do you accept contract assigned at a lower price than original purchase price? That’s a very, very good question. So if, say, the market value is 1,500,000 for a property, but the client is, purchasing it for 1,300,000, we will always lend against the lower value. So we would always we would lend against the 1,300,000 price rather than the, market value or contract assigned price purely because the lend the debt will always be based on what the client is putting in.

So the loan to value metrics will always work based on what they are purchasing the price, the property for. So if they purchase for 1,300,000 and the market value is 1,500,000, there’s 200 k hope value in there. And that will become very, very important for the client especially when they look to do a refinance or to exit. But from a acquisition perspective, we’ll always go on the lower amount. So we have a question saying a few people saying that the no UK bank account is a problem.

What are your needs for that? I mean, we can support you in terms of looking for bank accounts that allow foreign nationals to set up a basic bank account. There are several different options are available. I think the best thing would be, if yourself or your broker to look into those options, we can also support you in that. But, the bank account only becomes relevant on the buy to let.

So and that will have to be done at completion. So let’s say it might take 4 weeks to do a deal. We do have 4 weeks for you to get that done. That doesn’t have to be done right at the beginning. It just has to be done on completion, which should be enough time for you to be able to set up a bank account because there are, banks that do offer very basic accounts that allow you to have a direct debit.

So it’s it’s just a it’s just a matter of actually having a look and seeing what’s out there in the market in terms of that. Adverse credit. Do you conduct credit searches? So yeah. What we would require in any deal that comes through whether it’s bridging or buy to let is for the client to provide a credit report.

If they are a foreign national and they don’t have any, then that’s fine. That’s not a problem because there’s no UK footprint. But if they are a UK based, client and they have got adverse credit, we would require the client to clear the credit, the adverse credit. So for argument’s sake, if it’s, I don’t know, a £5,000 CCJ that they’ve got registered against their name, we can actually help them put that part of the loan, put that £5,000 towards clearing the CCJ off. So we can do the adverse clients, but they would be required to clear off any adverse credit that’s registered against them.

If it’s something like a British Gas bill or a like T Mobile, EE bill. Sorry. I’m going back here to show my age right now. Then, that’s something we can take a view on. That’s something very different, but anything that’s a substantial amount would need to be cleared.

So yes. Contracts then. Do you require the original seller’s AML? Because I have a deal where the lender needs to see the sellers. No.

No. No. No. So we don’t have a requirement to see the vendor sellers AML because we’re not doing the due diligence on them. The due diligence and the KYC will only be based on the actual purchaser.

We don’t have, we don’t have any restrictive covenants where the client, we do it on the vendor because at the end of the day, they’re the ones selling the property. So that will be taken up between the solicitors once between the buyer and the seller solicitors. But from our perspective, we’re not lending to that entity. So, no, we don’t require that. Have another question.

We have a client living in USA and is a homeowner there, and they’re looking for a remortgage for a house in the UK. They did live in it when residing in the UK. They have dual nationality with a Ghanaian passport. Would you consider looking for 75% loan to value if possible? So the client is living in the UK and is a homeowner there, but they’re looking for a remortgage for a house they did live in.

If it’s for a buy to let, yes, we can do it based on the Ghanaian nationality. That’s not a problem and we can look for 75% loan to value. It just might not be on the tiered. In terms of the tiered product, we might not be on the lowest amount. It would just be on the mid tier product.

But, yeah, we can do that. Russians are in a day. Currently, yes. Obviously, with the current climate, I’m not I’m not going to delve too much into the situation obviously that’s going on. But, working with Russian nationals at the moment is something that we are taking government guidance on.

So not at the moment. We have a client whose income is in US dollars. What is our stance? Yep. In terms of foreign income.

So yeah. Absolutely. If you have a client who gets paid, we do actually see quite a few of those, especially clients who work in like banks, abroad. A lot of them get paid in the US dollars because of the national current. That’s the kind of, you know, global currency that everybody uses.

We don’t have an issue from that. The the income will only become relevant if we either top slice on a deal which is very very an it’s not necessarily used a lot. So that’s the only time or if we do a bridging deal where the client is servicing the debt. But 95% of the time, no. The income is not a problem.

So we can we can do that. We have another client saying, verification of income is causing issues when it comes to placing cases for foreign nationals. What are our processes and requirements when it comes to verifying income? As mentioned actually onto the income, income doesn’t necessarily need to be verified unless we are servicing a debt. So from a bridging perspective, only if there’s like a commercial property that they’re purchasing for argument’s sake.

They’re buying them, I don’t know, an old Tesco’s and they’re gonna run a retail store from it, and they wanna service the bridging loan to Rilla, the actual income, that’s only when we will need to see the income. If not but even if it’s from a buy to let perspective, but the rental 120 percent ICR is hit, we don’t require it. So in terms of verifying income, it’s it’s only in certain cases. And when we do do those it will only be, to make sure that they can service the debt. So we can use your income based in Singapore, US, what have you.

It’s it’s not a problem. We would just have to see sight of your bank accounts in your respective country to verify that. So max loan to value and specific SIT code needed for a limited company on application. So max loan to value, we can go 75% and in terms of specific sit codes, we don’t, we don’t adhere to that. That’s not a problem because typically the, limited companies that are set up or SPVs are set up for the property are usually for the property.

If they’re going to be doing it in a business, on a commercial unit, that it’s not it’s not a we we don’t we don’t subscribe to the SIP code so it’s fine. We can do we can do any of them. So that’s that’s not something we need to worry about. Do you have a minimum required income for buy to let, please? No.

We don’t. So the only time we would require the income is if the rental ISR is not hit. So for instance, an example would be let’s say, you have a 1,500,000 no, £1,000,000 property. The rental income is £3,000 per month and the ICR needs to be at £3,250 per month. We would first use retained interest no.

Deferred interest to bring it down or also use retained interest. So then that will make the ICR fit for purpose. If there is still a shortfall of, say, £50 a month for argument’s sake, that’s when the client’s income would be relevant. And as long as they have a minimum of £50 that they can afford to pay, that’s when it comes down to it’s very much done on a case by case basis. So just a few more questions because I do believe we are coming up to an end to the thing.

So I’ll try to answer as quickly as possible. We have a client that says she need at least one applicant to be British. Is that the same with MFS? No. It can be both foreign nationals.

Not a problem. And do we look at consumer buy to let? No. We don’t. So I think we have one more question.

Do you do term loans for commercial prop premises? Not at the moment. However, do watch this space. We are looking to get into the commercial term loan hopefully later on in the year, so please watch this space. But yes.

I think that concludes all the questions. So yes. Thank you very much indeed. Just a reminder as well, Zahira can’t actually hear me, so it’s all fun and games. I know I’ve been sat here very quietly for the past kind of 10, 15 minutes, but I am doing something behind the scenes, I promise.

So thank you Paul for getting the the last poll on screen. Like I say unfortunately that is we all we’ve got time for today. Apologies if we didn’t manage to get to your question, but Zahira’s, very done very very well in getting through as many as we can there. So Zahira have you got anything to add for today? I’ll just give her a quick nudge in the chat box.

There we go. I think I’d just like to conclude very quickly. So thank you so much for listening. I do apologize for the technical difficulties. Unfortunately, technology has not been our friend today.

So blame the gods for that. But secondly, I think just from an overall perspective, we can lend to foreign nationals. Doesn’t matter what your visa requirements is. Doesn’t matter where you’re based. Please do send them over to myself.

I’m more than happy to have a look at them for you. We underwrite our deals up front. So within about 4 hours, you’ll get an indicative of where we can do. And in terms of minimum, we can do up to 150 max 3,000,000 on a single loan, 10,000,000 on a portfolio, and we can go up to 75% loan to value. And we can do more complex structures in terms of limited companies, BVI’s, holiday lets, HMO’s, multi unit blocks.

So very comprehensive list of things that we can do and we don’t have a computer says no model. We have a very holistic model, so please send the deals through it, and we’ll be happy to to support you and your clients moving forward. And thank you. That’s me, Don. Thank you very much indeed.

So just to confirm as well that your confirmation of attendance email will be sent out, probably tomorrow I think or later this week and that can be used as CPD. As I mentioned earlier I’m back for our criteria clinic on right to buy on Monday 21st March. Yes Monday 21st March. And you can view, and book onto that and all of our other upcoming webinars as I showed you earlier, on our website, which is www.knowledgebank.uk forward slash events, or for subscribers just by using the events tile on the knowledge bank homepage. So thank you all again for joining us on the knowledge bank lender spotlight with MFS.

Apologies again for the, technical issues that we had earlier. Thank you to Zahira for her time, and I will see you all again next week. Cheers, guys.