Recent tightening in mortgage lending conditions has led to an increase in applications be rejected, according to financial website, MoneyExpert. With the effects of over investing in the sub-prime market being felt in the US, lenders over here are batoning down the hatches in a damage limitation exercise which has seen nearly 740,000 mortgage applications rejected over the first six months of the financial year - a 60 per cent increase from the previous year.

This change in the UK’s financial environment will impact individuals looking to buy bad credit mortgages more so than any other group. With a standard mortgage application, there may be a chance, assuming that individuals have the appropriate financial standing, that the application will be agreed. For those looking to buy a bad credit mortgage though, lenders will quite reasonably not want to take the increased risk of lending money regardless of the high interest rates and potential profit that can come from such mortgages.

Mortgages expert, Alexis Svenn feels that the situation is now down to the buyers ability to prove their reliability,

“The fact of the matter is that anyone applying for a bad credit mortgage has to convince their bank they can cope with the repayments.”

Svenn also commented on the mortgage situation in Scotland compared to that of England and Wales,

“The problem with higher interest rates and tougher lending criteria hasn’t really spread to Scotland. There, lenders are more thoroughly considering the risks of lending money and so the percentage of rejections is a lot lower.”

This may be because banks such as Halifax Bank of Scotland don’t deal with bad credit mortgages and so have not had to changes their application criteria. It seems that the trend is one that is occuring purely in the sub-prime market and so HBoS customers have not been affected as the bank is a mainstream lender.

With less funding available for sub-prime market those applying for bad credit mortgages need to carefully weigh up whether to go to the trouble to arrange a bad credit mortgage and risk rejection, or seek to improve their financial situation so that they can apply for lower risk, mainstream mortgages.

Thanks to Click’n'Go for their advice on Bad Credit Mortgages.

Article Source: Rob Camp

Terminally ill patients would be allowed to access their pension savings before they die, under a change in the law proposed by Preston’s MP.

Mark Hendrick will table legislation before Parliament next month in a bid to help people who are diagnosed with a terminal illness long before they are of retirement age.

He told the Evening Post it is “unfair” that someone aged 40 who is diagnosed with terminal cancer would be prevented from accessing their pension pot.

Many pension schemes allow contributors to take early retirement – but only in their 50s.

The Labour MP said: “There are sadly people who may have put significant amounts of money into a pension scheme, but then have never seen the benefit of it.”

Mr Hendrick, whose campaign is backed by the GMB union, believes the early release of cash could be paid for by using money from the government’s pension protection fund, set up to provide compensation for victims of pension mis-selling.

His 10 minute-rule bill is due to receive its first Commons reading on October 17.