"This allows us to focus resources on delivering support, including mortgage payment holiday arrangements, to our 38,000 existing borrowers."
The lender is unable to accept automated valuations, desktop or drive-by valuations. FHL is investigating viable alternatives, but says it will be unable to instruct new valuations until further notice. Foundation has also put all pre-valuation applications on hold.
In a statement on its website, FHL said it is seeing a "very high take up of the mortgage payment holiday scheme". It is not offering an online mortgage payment holiday facility and instead is reviewing each situation on a case-by-case basis.
Foundation will not require evidence but will have a conversation with each customer to understand their circumstances and explore what the most appropriate solution is. Any payment holiday will not have a negative effect on the customer’s credit file.
Hans Geberbauer, chief executive of Foundation Home Loans, commented: “Foundation Home Loans has taken the decision to temporarily suspend all new applications as from 31 March 2020. This allows us to focus resources on delivering support, including mortgage payment holiday arrangements, to our 38,000 existing borrowers. With this in mind, and given the current situation with valuations, we have also taken the decision to put all pre-offer applications on hold.
“In order to focus all our efforts on providing mortgage payment holidays and with the suspension of new applications, we will furlough a number of our staff under the Government’s Covid-19 Job Retention programme. We are asking these employees not to work during April, during which time we can we can re-evaluate our product offering in this fast-changing environment. As we will furlough a number of staff, advisers’ normal Foundation contacts may not be available during April and they should therefore use our central helpline if they need to contact us.
“These decisions have not been taken lightly but we believe they are necessary; we will be doing all we can to assist both our staff and all our intermediary partners during these challenging times.”
