Beacon halts new lending

13 November 2009 | By Natalie Thomas

Beacon Homeloans has ceased new lending as it waits for its funding line to be renewed.

Mortgage Strategy understands that Beacon Homeloans has temporarily closed its doors until a decision has been made to renew its funding. As a result all fully packaged cases will need to be submitted to Beacon by Friday.

Beacon’s current mortgage asset purchase arrangements, which have enabled Beacon to lend around £2bn, will come to an end in February 2010.

But one source says this is not the end of Beacon and that Clive Wilson, sales director at Beacon and his colleagues are simply following FSA guidelines which state they must not accept business if they cannot guarantee funding.

One source says: “Beacon has a glittering future but because it is waiting for its funding to be renewed in February/March it has done the honorable thing and stopped accepting new business. There is no reason to think its funding line will not be renewed.”

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Readers' comments (11)

Jason Hegarty | 13 Nov 2009 11:08 am
Doing the honorable thing???!!!! We have just received an email from Beacon saying that unless all outstanding docs are recieved by the LENDER today NOT the packager then the application will be cancelled! We rang to say opk we may have to courier it all down and was then told thats still not good enough as YESTERDAY they changed their criteria on self cert! She went to say its all irrelavent as there is simply no money to lend so whatever we do it will make no difference. Glittering future, honorable!
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Anonymous | 13 Nov 2009 1:28 pm
What about the applicants who have paid a packager an administration and valuation fee in good faith. We have one client who has just paid £500 which included a £180 administration fee. Surely Beacon should re-inburse these cost's. Whats it called? Oh thats it,TREATING CUSTOMERS FAIRLY !
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Anonymous | 13 Nov 2009 2:43 pm
Just spoke to Beacon, Have a client who has paid £485.00, aint got an offer yet but val has been done, apparently they cannot refund the £385.00 val fee but client maybe able to get their £100 admin fee. again ERM "TREATING CUSTOMERS FAIRLY" how can they charge £385 for a vluation which is completely useless as they no money to lend the client, ridiculous!
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marc | 13 Nov 2009 3:14 pm
Beacon dont charge money upfront for valuations or admin fees, it more likely the packager the broker used and the refunds should be directed at them not beacon, lets no forget that beacon staying in the market as long as they did is comendeble and I take my hat off to them, its a great shame that HVB have ceased funding but beacon are not to blame, I just thank them for being in the market when we needed them and best of luck trying to get new funding lines,
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Sergio | 13 Nov 2009 3:29 pm
I have to agree with Marc, considering how many other sub prime lenders have fallen by the wayside, for Beacon to have lasted this long is amazing. I had an inkling this was coming for the last 3 weeks. I know this will not be of much comfort to brokers caught out by this (as have we) but, lets face it, with everything that has happened in the last 2 years, we should have all got used to 'rolling with the punches'!
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terry rafter | 13 Nov 2009 4:22 pm
The withdrawal of Beacon is going to leave a huge hole. Am I right in thinking that secured loans are now the most likely home for Self Cert, Adverse and potentially BTL
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Anonymous | 15 Nov 2009 11:25 am
Beacon did well to last this long, lets hope they get funding soon or their staff will be down the job centre like many others. Has the fact they cancelled their xmas party a sign if they get funding it won't be much?
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Anonymous | 16 Nov 2009 10:01 am
I don't think comments like the one above helps anyone and rumours result in the overall situation being made worse. Lets be clear, the market is a worse market without an intermediary based lender like Beacon being around. They seem positive about finding a replacement funder and so they should as they are a profitable, well run business with excellent staff. Lets help ourselves by concentrating on the many positive outcomes and not writing our own death warrants!
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Paul Bates | 17 Nov 2009 10:35 am
Beacon should have given more notice of thier withdrawal from the market. It's nothing short of disgraceful. They have let their packages down as well as brokers and clients many who have paid fees to the packager. The packagers had 24 hours notice. Not good enough - pathetic in fact. And they haven't got new funding in place at all..............
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David Smith | 17 Nov 2009 4:08 pm
We already have clients screaming down the phone at us asking for a refund of their fees. Some are prepared to complain all the way to the ombudsman if they must and they expect us to support their claim. I don't blame them but thats all we need at this momemnt in time.
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