Lender Legends · Q&A with Together’s Sally Precious Ward

August, 2024
Read time: 2 mins

A true financial aficionado, Together Money’s Regional Account Manager, Sally Precious Ward, is one of TLP’s go-to contacts when it comes to second charge criteria and common sense bridging lending.

With more than 25 years in the financial services sector, having previously worked as an IFA, mortgage broker and a debt restructure advisor, Sally has seen it all. Joining Together Money in March 2020, she now supports brokerages across the South of England, including the one and only TLP team.

Given the recent Governmental change and Base Rate reduction, we caught up with Sally to get her thoughts on the current lending market and how Together will be evolving their offer in the coming months

“Measure your success in kindness.

Whenever I am described by someone as kind, I feel like I’ve made it. That is better than anything else I am deemed to have achieved. I recently won an award at work and when I read the nomination I was really proud. It talked about how I was always happy to make some time for helping and the resulting outcome for that person. Basically just kindness!”

Thank you so much Sally, let’s get to it…

Given the governmental and economic changes of late, what recent updates have Together introduced to help both clients and brokers?

We are constantly reviewing our criteria and products and seek regular feedback from our supporting brokers. This allows us to understand what they are seeing in the market and how we can help them with more cases.

Flexible affordability calculations are a major reason that clients seek specialist finance lenders so recently we have reduced the stress testing we apply on affordability calculations down from 3% to 1%. This will support more clients whilst still maintaining a sufficient level of protection for customer affordability.

We have also made changes to our regulated bridge product that allows clients a period of 8 weeks from completion to market their property where they want to conduct some home improvements to achieve a better sale price.

These changes are all as a result of feedback around market requirements.

This year Together celebrates 50 years in the industry; what, in your opinion, sets Together apart from other lenders?

Together are the OG of specialist lending. With 1 in 4 clients having a specialist financial need, specialist lending is now the new norm. However, for Together it has always been the norm.

Having a person deal with each application, no computer based decisions and a common sense approach allows us to assess each application on its own merit to get the right customer outcome.

We also have a brilliant product range so if an application doesn’t fall within criteria for one particular product, we are still able to assist on a different product to find a solution for the customer.

What do you see as the benefits to second charge lending compared to other forms of finance?

Second charges are a great option for customers. They can protect their existing mortgage terms but access equity in their property to provide them with additional funds required. Brokers that are able to consider an alternative that is better value than a re-mortgage and achieve a customer’s borrowing ambitions are an asset to their clients.

There are so many reasons why this is a good option, lower interest rates than unsecured loans, flexible use of funds, higher loan amounts, the ability to borrow over a longer period to lower monthly outgoings.

I would love for all brokers in the market to become educated in considering this as an option, even if they don’t write this business themselves. Referring these opportunities to The Loan Partnership would be a great collaboration for them.

What do you find surprises most brokers when it comes to Together’s lending criteria?

Lending to clients who are self-employed but only have 1 years trading history and being able to consider projected income.

The flexibility around affordability with no Loan-to-Income restrictions and the ability to use customer stated expenditure is always well received along with using non-standard properties as security.

Can you share any upcoming changes that brokers should be aware of? Where is Together’s focus for the rest of 2024?

We are always reviewing products and criteria and have recently been working on prioritising a list of initiatives and suggested changes as a result of market feedback.

Together continue to have ambitious growth plans so along with maintaining our position as the best service provider and the most valued specialist lender, this means looking for ways to support customers better is a continuous journey for us.

Enough business, can you tell us a little bit more about you? What would be your mastermind topic?

How to travel the world on a budget with time restraints.

Full time work prevents me from fulfilling my dream of being a nomad. However, I have managed to do some great holidays backpacking with the family including Vietnam, Indonesia and Europe. We often end up off the beaten track and staying with local families for a few nights and there are usually some tales to tell when we come home (including quarantine in a Greek covid hotel and a mugging incident). We continue to dine out on these stories to this day though.