Coventry Building Society has agreed a potential takeover of the Co-operative Bank for £780million. The merger would see Co-operative regain its mutual status and create a group with a balance sheet of around £89billion. Co-op Bank currently has around 2.6m customers and Coventry around 2m. A stock market statement says the talks are at an advanced stage and due diligence has been carried out, however, it is still dependent on both sides agreeing to terms and on regulatory approval. Coventry Building Society says its board has looked into whether it would need to get its members’ approval ahea ..read more

Residential mortgage lender Gen H has announced another expansion to their intermediary panel as it partners with Mortgage Intelligence Advisors with the Mortgage Intelligence network will gain access to Gen H pro, their proprietary submissions platform, which allows them to submit and track all cases. This partnership brings Gen H’s intermediary panel to over 16,500 advisors. Gen H launched to market in 2019 and rolled out to the intermediary market in 2021. The company announced earlier this year it would become intermediary-only to prioritise forging deeper partnerships across the industry ..read more

Co-operative Bank has warned brokers that current rates will be withdrawn at 5pm tomorrow to make way for price increases of up to 41 basis points. The lender is also trimming rates on some of its deals. In an email to advisers it says that in its residential range, selected two, three and five year fixed rates will rise by up to 41bps. Other residential two and five year fixes will decrease by up to 7 bps. In its professional mortgage range two year fixes will rise by up to 41 bps and five year fixes by up to 33 bps. There are no pricing changes on its product switch, buy-to-let or help to bu ..read more

More than two thirds (68%) of brokers expect to arrange more bridging loans in 2024 than 2023, according to the latest Castle Trust Bank Pulse survey. The research found that a quarter (25%) of brokers expect a ‘good increase’ in bridging business during 2024, with 43% saying they think it will be ‘slightly higher’. One in five (21%) of brokers expect demand to remain the same, whilst only 11% are concerned that bridging business levels may fall. This positive outlook reflects continued growth in demand for bridging finance. According to the research, 42% of brokers said they arranged more bri ..read more

The number of tower blocks with unsafe cladding that has to be stripped out lifted to well over 4,000 in March, according to official figures.  There are 4,329 residential buildings at 11 metres and over with unsafe fire-safety cladding that need remediation work in England, and Northern Ireland, up by 237 since February, according to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities.  It adds that “the majority” of this increase is due to revised social housing data, added to its private rented building figures.  The UK’s flat sale market has been severely cu ..read more

Average house prices in Scotland have edged up by 0.4% annually to £220,736 in February, according to the latest index from Walker Fraser Steele and Acadata. But the change marks a slight decline of 0.2% compared to £221,130 in January. Of all Scottish regions, Inverclyde recorded the strongest annual growth rate at 11.4% with prices reaching £149,211, up from £133,941 in February last year. The city of Edinburgh overtook East Renfrewshire as the local authority area with the highest house prices, at £329,976. East Renfrewshire had higher average house prices a year ago at £339,167, but they h ..read more

By Legal & General Mortgage Services managing director Kevin Roberts  The recent Easter break has been an excellent opportunity to take a step back and look at where our market stands after the first three months of 2024.   At the end of last year, we saw predictions of gross lending falling to £215bn as cost-of-living challenges and higher rates were expected to continue to impact lending. Yet, the conversations I am having across the mortgage market today paint an altogether more positive picture.   Optimism is creeping in – expectations are emerging of gross len ..read more

Atom has launched a number of near-prime products and cut rates on others by up to 30 basis points. The lender has today cut near-prime two-year fixed rates by between 10 and 30 basis points and five-year fixes by between 15 and 30 bps. As a result, two-year fixed rates start at 6.14% and five-year fixed rates at 5.64%. Its new three-year fixed rates start at 5.99% and go up to a maximum of 85% loan-to-value. Head of mortgages Richard Harrison says: “We know that brokers will welcome a wider range of competitively-priced products as they cater for those clients who may have the odd black mark ..read more

Later life lender LiveMore has appointed three new heads of department across finance, compliance and marketing. Eduard Akopian joins as head of finance from Pepper Money where he was interim head of finance. Carly Chandler has been promoted from compliance manager to head of compliance after three years at the lender. Sarah Wade, who joined LiveMore as a consultant in November, has been promoted to head of marketing for intermediaries. As head of finance, Akopian will advise the management team on corporate matters, spending, protecting financial assets and will oversee day-to-day operations ..read more

Coventry for Intermediaries is to start paying procuration fees on all further advances. The lender will make the payments on all completed residential and buy-to-let loans. Fees will be paid at brokers’ usual new business rate. The additional borrowing can be taken on any new business product, subject to loan to value restrictions. Head of intermediary relationships Jonathan Stinton says: “If people want to borrow extra on their mortgage, chances are they’re going to turn to their broker for help. “We have listened to feedback and want to remunerate brokers for the work and diligence in guidi ..read more