Things you need to know 

Following the decision to take the mortgage assets of Bradford & Bingley Group into temporary public ownership, Mortgage Express is now currently closed to all new business. We will not accept new applications for mortgages or further advances and re-offers will no longer be made.

All mortgage offers that have been issued will be honoured, in line with the terms outlined in the specific conditions of each offer.

We are currently working through the full ramifications of the decision and will update this website with more information as and when this is available.

Following a change in legislation, from 1st October 2008, all landlords with properties in England & Wales will be required by law to provide an Energy Performance Certificate for new tenants.

Mortgage Express has teamed up with Connells Survey & Valuation Ltd to provide an EPC service direct to customers. We will be contacting customers in the coming weeks, in addition to providing information on our website, to inform them of the new legislation and our EPC service.

At close of business on the 27th August 2008, we made some adjustments to our Buy-to-Let fixed rates for customers with LTVs at 80% or below. We also moved all our fixed rate end dates to 31st October.

At the same time, we revised our criteria for our Self Cert products. Self Cert mortgages will now only be available for FTBs and home movers, and are no longer available for remortgages and debt consolidation purposes.

Our Lifetime products are unaffected.

The final dates for our existing rates are:

• Unpackaged applications - 3rd September 2008
• Packaged applications - 17th September 2008
• Offer issue - 8th October 2008

Our core and exclusive product rate sheets have been updated to reflect these changes.

If you have any questions about these changes, please contact your local BDM.

Changes have been made to the Group's valuation panel. These changes will reduce the overall size of the panel while ensuring that national coverage is retained with no impact on service.

When a customer applies for a mortgage through Mortgage Express, part of the process involves a valuation company estimating the value of the property on the Group's behalf. The companies that form the Group's valuation panel are spread across the country, meaning a customer's property can be valued no matter where they live.

Over the past few years, the Group's valuation panel has steadily grown in size, to the point where it was recently considered to be unnecessarily large. The distribution team felt that now would be an ideal time to review the size and balance of the current panel so that it better meets the needs of the Group.

The current panel is split into two groups; a premier panel, made up of 130 national, corporate firms, and a secondary panel, which includes 42 smaller, localised firms. The secondary panel is only really used during times of high demand.

Considering the premier panel handled over 100,000 valuations in 2007 and had no need for the 'overspill' facility provided by the secondary panel, the review has focused on reducing the number of firms to a more manageable size. This will be possible without affecting the standard of service or quality of valuation reporting that has been established thus far.

Click here for a copy of the Valuation Panel.

Due to recent increases in fixed rate funding costs, on Friday 1st August we're increasing our Lifetime and Lifetime Extra fixed rates.

The final dates for our existing Lifetime and Lifetime Extra rates are:

• Binding decisions - Close of business 31st July 2008
• Unpackaged applications - 7th August 2008
• Packaged applications - 21st August 2008
• Offer issue - 11th September 2008
• Completions - 6 months after offer issue date

As usual, we will update our core rate sheets. The details will be available on www.mortgage-express.co.uk from 1st August 2008.

If you have any questions about these changes, please contact your local BDM.

As of Monday 21st July, we revised our policy toward acceptance of ASTs within the Buy-to-Let mortgage application process.

From now on, we will only accept an AST to support a challenge to a valuer's rental assessment providing the AST is legally compliant and the rental income figures are substantiated by verifiable evidence of rental payments reaching the applicant's bank account.

For further information on our lending policy, please contact your local BDM.

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