Buckinghamshire Building Society has temporarily suspended new decisions in principle (DIPs) to deal with “unprecedented demand”.
The lender will only be accepting applications where the decision has been accepted prior to December 7, and is expected to re-open for new applications in 2021.
The building society said it decided to prioritise serving brokers on cases already in its pipeline, as it continued to experience “very high demand” across its product range.
It added that maintaining quality of service was its “top priority” and that a temporary suspension of new enquiries over the holiday period was the “best way” it could ensure this.
Tim Vigeon, head of lending at Buckinghamshire Building Society, said: “Our individual human underwriting approach is time consuming but ensures that we can offer our products to many borrowers who are rejected by the standard ‘computer says no’ approach.”
Luke Spellman, financial adviser at Spellman Financial Services, commented: “Hopefully the action taken to suspend new business applications will be temporary and will enable underwriters the time they need to get service levels back on track.”
The timeframe for underwriting and offer is four to six weeks from receipt of application, according to Buckinghamshire’s website, which also asks intermediaries to “try to keep calls chasing cases to a minimum”.
In September, the Intermediary Mortgage Lenders Association announced it would be surveying members to identify the challenges to lenders that were straining service levels.
The trade body added that it wanted to use the insights to come up with possible solutions and work with intermediaries to address the market’s capacity challenges.
chloe.cheung@ft.com
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