How Air helped keep a pensioner’s home from being repossessed
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When Alex Hamilton faced the challenge of ensuring an older woman could keep her home, he knew where to turn – Air helped him source and recommend a solution weeks before her flat was to be taken away from her
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ALEX HAMILTON has 17 years’ experience in specialist finance, in first- and second-charge mortgages, bridging finance, buy-to-let, equity release, commercial, and development finance.
Hamilton is later-life lending manager for Positive Lending, in Ringwood, Hampshire, which is a member of Air Select, Air’s panel proposition.
The service offers advisers support and resources to help them develop and grow later-life businesses. It provides a structured distribution channel for later-life advisers like Hamilton, who writes business through Air Club.
Members have access to a range of over 200 later-life and
Air is a next-generation, industry-leading later-life platform, enabled by technology, knowledge, and people. It offers financial professionals, from advisers to lenders, what it describes as best-in-class digital-sourcing tools. Air Sourcing is its innovative technology, designed to connect users with more opportunities to deliver better customer outcomes, while Air Academy provides a personal, business-focused learning platform underpinned by knowledgeable experts and offering a range of LIBF-accredited modules. Air Club is the UK’s largest community of its kind, offering a gateway to increasing levels of competitive advantage and profitability. All are designed to support and reward business growth.
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“Air is our preferred later-life lending platform because they provide everything a broker could need. Air is very good at fully understanding the case. It is liaising directly with lenders on our behalf ”
Alex Hamilton,
Positive Lending
equity-release products from names such as Canada Life, Legal & General Home Finance, and more2Life.
In his role at Positive Lending, Hamilton is used to the everyday challenges of securing the finance that his clients need. He acknowledges that the task has not been made easier by turbulence in the UK economy over recent months.
“The market has been challenging really ever since the rate rises happened,” Hamilton notes. “So we've noticed that a couple of lenders have pulled out of the market completely and stopped lending.”
But, as you might expect of an adviser of his experience, Hamilton embraces the challenges that Positive Lending’s clients bring to his door, confident of always finding a solution through Air Select and Air Club.
“We deal with customers from across society and UK-wide, from those with small pensions through to high-net-worth individuals doing over a million pounds of equity release, or anywhere in between,” he explains. “Most of our business is B2C, direct to the consumer or via intermediaries.”
When a 70-year-old divorced woman facing the imminent repossession of her home sought Hamilton’s expertise, he knew that it was a complex case.
“The challenge with this one was threefold,” he reflects.
“The client was coming to the end of her 25-year term, interest-only mortgage on a two-bedroom residential maisonette. She was supported by a number of pensions,
He continues, “There was no management company involved; if there were any problems – for example, a roof leaking – it was the responsibility of the leaseholders to sort out the problem, which made it quite complicated. So, as part of the mortgage, we had to contact the solicitor dealing with her paperwork, and also another solicitor, who was dealing with the lease and its extension.”
In one respect, the solution might have seemed simple enough: sell the property (even with its lease issues) and achieve the equity the client needed. But it wasn’t that straightforward.
“She didn’t want to downsize or move from the area; her children and grandchildren lived nearby,” Hamilton says. “She would have had to move ‘way out of the area, plus would have had the costs of moving, and she was under a huge amount of stress because there was only a short amount of time – eight weeks – before the house would be repossessed.”
His task, therefore, was to raise a loan to clear the current debt, a not inconsiderable £120,000, while providing enough additional funds to support his client’s living costs, and to ensure that the lease would be extended with her current landlord.
“We would never change from Air to anyone else – that’s how confident we are in the Air Sourcing software. It’s so advanced. I class it as the Rolls-Royce of sourcing”
Alex Hamilton,
Positive Lending
Hamilton turned, as always, to Air, using its Air Sourcing software to search for the best product for his client.
“Given her circumstances I decided to go down the equity-release route rather than a retirement interest [RIO] mortgage,” he says. “Our service level agreement [SLA] is that we will speak to a customer, complete a factfind, and get the case approved within 24 hours, so that’s quite a short timescale. Most equity-release providers take six to eight weeks to complete from the initial offer.
“Based on my client’s requirements, we used Air Sourcing to
Through Air, Hamilton quickly identified an ideal lender for his client – Canada Life.
“It was an equity-release product, with the interest rolled up,” he elaborates. “She didn’t have to pay anything monthly unless she chose to make lump-sum payments. So, there were only two events where a payment would need to be made – if she either passed away and the property then passed to the beneficiaries of the will, or she went into long-term care with no prospect of actually moving back into the property. We had enough time in that period to get everything approved, so I was very happy with that recommendation.”
Hamilton was able to give the good news to his very relieved client.
“Once the offer was in, her stress alleviated; she had got a solution to her problem,” Hamilton recalls. “She said that God was good to her, it was very heartfelt.”
For the manager of later-life lending at Positive Lending, the case confirms why Air is his go-to platform when seeking a solution for his clients.
“Air is our preferred later-life lending platform because they provide everything a broker could need,” says Hamilton. “Air is very good at fully understanding the case. It is liaising directly with lenders on our behalf, so it's really important for us to make sure that we're clear and to the point.
“When you source most mortgages, you’re asked a fair number of questions, but with Air it’s not like that. We can get a quote for a customer and up-to-date prices literally by answering four questions. It we want to go into a bit more detail after completing the factfinding, all we have to do is press a button and all that information is transferred to Air. It then passes it on to the lender automatically.”
He adds, “Air is very good at coming back to us within 24 hours in all cases. I think the competition need to look at how good they are in terms of ease of use, quick referrals, and the interest rates they source. It’s very user-friendly. Six of our equity-release advisers have all had the training on Air’s system, and we've had positive feedback from every single adviser.”
Hamilton concludes, “We would never change from Air to anyone else – that’s how confident we are in the Air Sourcing software. It’s so advanced. I class it as the Rolls-Royce of sourcing.”
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which were okay, but probably not enough to live on in the current cost-of-living crisis, and given her age there was some vulnerability.
“She was stressed because her mortgage had to be repaid within a couple of months. If she didn't pay it by that time, the bank would take possession of the property, which was in London. The second challenge was the lease on the property. It was a leasehold property and there were only 72 years remaining, which was too short for a lender to consider, and it didn’t factor in a garage that came with
the building.”
UK Later-life facts
65+
Age bracket one in four people in the UK may be in by 2050
£153.9bn
Estimated worth of the later-life lending market
1,000s
Jobs created for every pound of equity released, which generates an estimated two pounds of benefit for society
Value of equity released accessed by 610,000 homeowners since 1991
£42bn
£54.9bn
Value of new lending and product switching in 2021
Air: Key facts
• largest community
of its kind in the
later-life lending
market, with over
8,000 members
• specifically designed
Air
Club
• a sophisticated,
industry-leading
technology solution,
with over 9,000
registered users
• offers access to
an intuitive interface
that allows users to
source products in
real-time
Air Sourcing
ALEX HAMILTON has 17 years’ experience in specialist finance, in first- and second-charge mortgages, bridging finance, buy-to-let, equity release, commercial, and development finance.
Hamilton is later-life lending manager for Positive Lending, in Ringwood, Hampshire, which is a member of Air Select, Air’s panel proposition.
The service offers advisers support and resources to help them develop and grow later-life businesses. It provides a structured distribution channel for later-life advisers like Hamilton, who writes business through Air Club.
Members have access to a range of over 200 later-life and
“The challenge with this one was threefold,” he reflects.
“The client was coming to the end of her 25-year term, interest-only mortgage on a two-bedroom residential maisonette. She was supported by a number of
pensions, which were okay, but probably not enough to live on in the current cost-of-living crisis, and given her age there was some vulnerability.
“She was stressed because her mortgage had to be repaid within a couple of months. If she didn't pay it by that time, the bank would take possession of the property, which was in London. The second challenge was the lease on the property. It was a leasehold property and there were only 72 years remaining, which was too short for a lender to consider, and it didn’t factor in a garage that came with the building.”
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“When you source most mortgages, you’re asked a fair number of questions, but with Air it’s not like that. We
can get a quote for a customer and up-to-date prices literally by answering four questions. It we want to go
into a bit more detail after completing the factfinding, all we have to do is press a button and all that information is transferred to Air. It then passes it on to the lender automatically.”
He adds, “Air is very good at coming back to us within 24 hours in all cases. I think the competition need to look at how good they are in terms of ease of use, quick referrals, and the interest rates they source. It’s very user-friendly. Six of our equity-release advisers have all had the training on Air’s system, and we've had positive feedback from every single adviser.”
Hamilton concludes, “We would never change from Air to anyone else – that’s how confident we are in the Air Sourcing software. It’s so advanced. I class it as the Rolls-Royce of sourcing.”
News
MORTGAGE INDUSTRY
BEST IN MORTGAGE
MORTGAGE TYPES
TV
Resources
US
CA
AU
NZ
UK
Copyright © 1996-2023 KM Business Information UK Ltd.
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Contact us
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to help members
grow and develop
their businesses
The scenario
The solution
The takeaways
The scenario
The solution
The takeaways
“Air is our preferred later-life lending platform because they provide everything a broker could need,” says Hamilton. “Air is very good at fully understanding the case. It is liaising directly with lenders on our behalf, so it's really important for us to make sure that we're clear and to the point.
“When you source most mortgages, you’re asked a fair number of questions, but with Air it’s not like that. We can get a quote for a customer and up-to-date prices literally by answering four questions. It we want to go into a bit more detail after completing the factfinding, all we have to do is press a button and all that information is transferred to Air. It then passes it on to the lender automatically.”
He adds, “Air is very good at coming back to us within 24 hours in all cases. I think the competition need to look at how good they are in terms of ease of use, quick referrals, and the interest rates they source. It’s very user-friendly. Six of our equity-release advisers have all had the training on Air’s system, and we've had positive feedback from every single adviser.”
Hamilton concludes, “We would never change from Air to anyone else – that’s how confident we are in the Air Sourcing software. It’s so advanced. I class it as the Rolls-Royce of sourcing.”
refer the case to our lender panel. With Air, you upload certain documents to the case overview and they’ll then speak to the lenders on our behalf, to say. ‘These are the issues with the case – are you able to agree to it?’ They’ll do the referral for you, and they then come back with the available lenders. Our job then is to place the case with the most suitable, cost-effective lender on the market.”
The solution
The takeaways
The scenario
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