Nat West Lending Criteria for Intermediaries

Fullybel

Wondered if there are any FAs / Mortage intermediaries that can help clear up some confusion.  I am aware of someone who applied for a mortgage with Nat West in 2015, after the Mortgage Market Review tightened up on affordability assessments. On this application they omitted to put in a commitment to school fees and say that Nat West did not want to know about them.  Looking at current lending criteria although Nat West make their own assumptions on childcare costs and only question if supporting statements show a large discrepancy they do cite private school fees as FINANCIAL COMMITMENT and expect it to be captured as such.  Should school fees commitment be included in the application form for Nat West to choose if they are applicable and has this always been the case since the Mortgage Market Review? 
Current lending criteria here states 

Financial Commitments

We capture the following commitments in the ‘Financial Commitments’ section of the application form. You should ensure that the commitments captured here total the same amount of what you have used in the affordability calculator. (see also ‘Loans / Credit Cards’)

 

·         Maintenance / Child Support

·         Rent

·         School Fees

·         Childcare costs

·         Adult care costs

·         Ground rent

·         Service Charge

·         Estate Charge

·         Help to buy loan

·         Other committed expenditure

Thrugelmir

School fees are a significant outgoing and should be declared. As would have a material impact on affordability. 

kingstreet

NatWest wants to know about childcare and school fees now.

haras_n0sirrah

Why are you asking? In 2015 natwest weren't as hot on childcare as they are now. Why does it matter what someone did in 2015 compared to now?

[Deleted User]

I'm going to guess your friend can't afford the mortgage and wants to see if can do a mis selling complaint as they didn't take childcare in to account.  

Maybe I've been around here too long and I'm turning overly cynical 

Fullybel

I am asking now because the mortgage was always affordable and was applied for without one of the married partners being present when the online application was made.  Nat West have forwarded screen shots of the affordability assessment and school fees were not included.  The FA at the time says Nat West did not include them in their calculations for affordability so they did not declare them even though they were aware that 30K a year were committed to fees.  My view is that Nat West may not have included them in their calculations at the time but that does not mean the detail should have been withheld.  Additionally the FA took word from the applicant that family were paying fees but did not ask for any guarantor, this is a flagrant disregard of having systems and checks in place?  This is one of many issues with the mortgage application, my initial question was how did it pass affordability?

Fullybel

Correct that comment, the mortgage always was NEVER affordable.

kingstreet

AFAIK it's only childcare NatWest could ignore. School fees should always have been included in affordability.

[Deleted User]

Agree with the above but if sumbutted through a broker at certain ltvs then they may not have requested bank statements and would have been none the wiser.   They would rely on the broker doing their job properly. 

Thrugelmir

Fullybel said:

Additionally the FA took word from the applicant that family were paying fees but did not ask for any guarantor, this is a flagrant disregard of having systems and checks in place? 

Financial transactions are fundamentally based on trust. My word is my bond. Impossible to cover every eventuality of the situation with 100% certainty looking into the future.