As everyone continues to navigate through these unprecedented times, we have been reflecting on how, as a lender, we can make things easier for you and your customers.

Our mission is to help give everyone a safe place to call home, and we therefore need to understand your customers and their individual circumstances in more detail to ensure we are lending responsibly.  Once an application is submitted, we provide a list of what documents we need to support their application, in order for us to make an early lending decision so that you know as early as possible whether Vida will be able to lend to your customer.

 I understand that every mortgage lender has its own processes and individual requirements, and I can understand it can be very confusing, and at times, frustrating. But, the more we can see at the start of the application, the better it is for you as we will be able to provide a quicker lending decision. So, I therefore wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with an overview of our application journey so that you can help us look at your application earlier:

As you can see, whilst we ask for detailed information at DIP stage, this is so we can establish at the earliest stage whether this is a case that Vida can consider lending to, so not to waste you or your customers’ time or money. Once a DIP has been accepted and the full application form completed, along with the  fees, we set out the mandatory documents we need to review the application at the initial underwrite stage. These should be uploaded to our Broker Portal at the same time as the application and fees and this will help our underwriters to understand your customer’s profile and build a case to lend. Without the documents this can’t happen, which is why we ask for them upfront so we can get the application moving.

So that we can understand your customers individual circumstances in a greater detail and build a strong ‘picture’, we also have a section of the application form that enables you to give us any further information and detail about the customers scenario and situation. All this background information gives our underwriters insight to make an accurate decision. Of course, our underwriter may ask for further documentation based on information they have been given, or evidential documentation based on your initial conversation. The more accurate the information submitted as part of the application process, and supporting documentation is, the smoother and quicker the application will flow through to an underwriter for assessment.

To help you, we have created some key guides and documentation for you for submitting and application with Vida. Before submitting an application, please review our website where you can find a breakdown of documents we typically require in each case scenario, whilst this isn’t an exhaustive list, it will give you a good indication on the level of information required to submit your application, enabling an informed conversation prior to application with the customer.

As with most other lenders, we are carrying out some additional checks on the plausibility of an application, and sustainability of employment and income going forward as a result of the pandemic. We have created a section on our website in relation to COVID-19, which demonstrates the information we require at application to progress a case through to assessment and making a responsible lending decision that is right for your customer. We have also added a section on our lending criteria page to guide you in some of the changes in our criteria. Please take time to review the documentation, blogs and links we put out there to ensure your application has the best journey it can – Help us to help you.

We are however currently experiencing unprecedented levels of incoming applications, which we are working through and providing outcomes for each application, however this has meant that our usual service times have been affected and regrettably things are taking a lot longer than we would like. Please ensure you check our website regularly for our current SLAs to help manage yours and the customers’ expectations.

Thank you for your continued support, and I hope you and your families are all keeping safe during these unprecedented times