Foundation Home Loan has unveiled a ‘Green Reward’ remortgage as part of its residential range.

The residential ‘Green Reward’ remortgages are available to those existing owner-occupier borrowers who have made improvements to their home and subsequently raised their Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating to a ‘C’ or above.

Both these new two and five-year products are available to borrowers who “just miss out” on the high-street and are priced as follows:

• Two-year fix at 3.24% for 75% LTV and 4.39% for 85% LTV.
• Five-year fix at 3.59% for 75% LTV and 4.74% for 85% LTV.

The ‘Reward’ element of the product is £750 cashback on completion plus a reduced product fee of £595, normally £995, with the products only available on a capital and interest repayment basis.

The intermediary-only specialist lender said the products have deliberately simple criteria: the lender does not stipulate specific types of improvements which must have been carried out for the owner occupiers to qualify for this remortgage. It is available on properties which have an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of ‘C’ or above – dated within the last 24 months, except for listed properties (which do not hold EPCs).

The product has been designed to provide a specialist mortgage solution to those homeowners who have made energy efficient improvements to their homes and deserve to be rewarded for their ‘green’ endeavours. The lender said it wanted its remortgage offering to act as a further catalyst to support the reduction of the carbon footprint from UK residential properties.

These Green Reward remortgages follow the introduction of a similar product specifically for buy-to-let landlords, introduced by Foundation earlier this year.

George Gee, commercial director at Foundation Home Loans, said: “Having launched our ‘Green Reward’ remortgage offering for landlords during February, we’re now able to expand our green offer to residential borrowers with both 75% and 85% LTV products over two and five-year terms, providing a greater degree of choice for those borrowers who are not able to access high-street lenders, but who undoubtedly should be rewarded for improving the energy efficiency of their home.

“The benefits in terms of reducing the carbon footprint and cutting down on energy bills are plain and obvious but homeowners can now benefit via their mortgage as well, and therefore this should be a further incentive to look at a property’s current EPC rating.

“When the low product fee and cashback are taken into account, these products’ total cost overall will tend to work out more advantageous for those homeowners who have secured the better EPC rating in the last 24 months. We believe this gives advisers another set of excellent choices for those clients who fill the bill.”