Contractor mortgages on a Rooftop Mortgages mortgage
Where lending to contractors changes the conveyancing position on a Rooftop Mortgages 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.
The general position on contractor mortgages is the same across the market. What differs is the lender's own requirement, and that sits in Part 2 of the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders' Handbook rather than in general guidance.
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.
Where a lender’s instructions to your solicitor come from
A conveyancer acting on a mortgage is acting for two clients at once, and the lender’s half of the instructions is a published document: the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders’ Handbook. It is the reason your solicitor asks for things that seem to have nothing to do with you.
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
Rooftop Mortgages’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.
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 Rooftop Mortgages 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 Rooftop Mortgages'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 Rooftop Mortgages.