Savills Lending Solutions' staff under consultation

The whole of Savills Lending Solutions’ workforce has been placed into consultation.

The staff under threat of losing their jobs at the Essex-based firm include senior management.

Savills Lending Solutions is the wholly owned packaging subsidiary of Savills Private Finance. It previously placed staff under consultation in December last year due to the lack of funding in the market and the exit of several specialist lenders.

However, at the time, Savills pledged the company would continue to trade.

Simon Jones, director of parent firm Savills Private Finance, could not confirm how long the consultation period will last, but said it could run to several weeks.

Jones could not comment on whether Savills Lending Solutions will continue to trade after the consultation period is closed, saying: "The purpose of the consultation is to assess the business and see what comes out of that.

"We can only look at the market conditions in the specialist sector, which have not improved."

Business will continue as usual during the consultation. An industry commentator says: "I believe that the demand was there from brokers, but in many cases Savills Lending Solutions couldn't help because the lenders just weren't there and the market has not improved. It's a real shame."

Savills Lending Solutions specialises in packaging hard to place cases, including residential first and second charge mortgages for prime, self-cert and non-conforming business.