Chelsea pulls range after business overload

The introduced range was withdrawn at 5pm Tuesday 25 March, with a new range set for launch from Friday (28) morning. The lender blamed a huge rise in applications following the tightening of criteria by other lenders. It's direct range is still available for applications.

Vicki O'Connell, media relations manager at Chelsea Building Society, said: “We’ve taken a view today that we’re seeing such a spike in business, with a real rise in applications, that we will withdraw our range at 5pm and we will be relaunching with a new range at 9am on Friday. At this moment in time I don’t have any more detail about what they will be.

“Service levels are very important to us and applications are coming in fast and we want to maintain the same levels of service to our customers.”

One broker, responding to the news, claimed that a two-day gap between product ranges was unusual but anything was possible in the current marketplace.