Contractor mortgages on a Furness Building Society mortgage
Where lending to contractors changes the conveyancing position on a Furness Building Society mortgage, and where it does not.
- Topic
- Contractor mortgages
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Handbook
- UK Finance · Part 1 & 2
Part 2 of the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders' Handbook is amended by lenders without notice. Check the current version before relying on any requirement described here.
What contractor mortgages means here
Lending to borrowers working through fixed-term contracts, limited companies or umbrella arrangements rather than on a permanent employment contract. Panel and conveyancing requirements follow the lender’s standard terms.
Two things decide how contractor mortgages goes: the general law, which is settled, and the lender's requirement, which is not, and which the lender can change between the offer and completion.
What has to be in place
Conveyancing is largely unchanged
How the borrower’s income is assessed is an underwriting matter. The conveyancing requirements are the lender’s standard ones for the product being taken.
Read the offer’s special conditions
Where a lender has underwritten around a contract, any condition attached to that sits in the special conditions on the offer and has to be satisfied before drawdown.
Limited company borrowers
If the borrower is a company rather than an individual, execution, capacity and any requirement for personal guarantees or independent legal advice all change.
Part 1, Part 2, and Furness Building Society's own answers
If a request from your solicitor seems to have nothing to do with your purchase, it is usually being made for Furness Building Society rather than for you. The UK Finance Mortgage Lenders' Handbook is where that obligation is written down.
Part 1
The same for every lender
- The general instructions that apply across the industry: what has to be investigated, what has to be reported, and what the certificate of title commits the firm to.
- Changes rarely, and changes are published.
Part 2
Furness Building Society’s own answers
- Where the lender sets its own position: what it accepts on indemnity policies, on new-build warranties, on occupiers and on much else.
- Amended by the lender without notice, which is why nothing on this site reproduces it.
Check the current version before relying on any requirement described anywhere, including here.
Because Part 2 can be amended without notice, the useful question is how often a given lender amends it. Here is the answer for Furness Building Society.
Counting the amendments rather than the years: Furness Building Society has made 78 changes to Part 2 sections since 2017, 59 of them in 2025. One amendment can touch several sections, so this counts section changes rather than distinct sections, and revisions that moved nothing but the document’s own date are left out.
Counted from the Lexsure Part 2 change record supplied on 3 August 2026, which holds the years a lender’s Part 2 was amended rather than what any amendment said. 2026 is a part year, because the extract was taken partway through it. A lender that revises Part 2 often is not a worse lender than one that leaves it alone: what these figures describe is how far a conveyancer can rely on what applied last time, which is why the current version is the one to check.
This site says which Part 2 question holds a lender-specific answer rather than reprinting the answer. A stale copy of a requirement, on a page someone acts on, is worse than no copy.
What to confirm with Furness Building Society rather than assume
Part 2 of the Handbook carries each lender's own requirements and its overrides of Part 1, and it is amended without notice. These are the points where the answer is Furness Building Society's rather than general practice:
- Any special condition on the mortgage offer and what evidence discharges it
- Whether the borrower is contracting personally or through a company
We do not reproduce Part 2 here. It is lender-specific, it changes without notice, and a stale copy of it on a page a conveyancer relies on is worse than no copy at all. LM04 tracks those changes.
Acting on this lender’s instructions
Panel membership decides whether a firm can act at all. LenderPanel maintains the directory borrowers search when choosing a conveyancer, including for Furness Building Society.