The Newbury Building Society deal is a family offset mortgage, with an initial variable rate of 3.95%, which is a 0.5% discount off the Society’s standard variable rate for three or five years.

It requires that one or two family members of the first-time buyer make a savings deposit of 20% of the purchase price with Newbury, reducing the net loan to 75%.

The maximum loan is £300,000. The deal has no arrangement fee and an early repayment charge (ERC) of 1% for the deal term, with unlimited ERC-free part repayments allowed.

The Saffron Building Society rent-to-buy mortgage is a four-year fixed rate at 6.49% up to 95% LTV, with a £195 arrangement fee. Affordability is calculated on the applicant’s rental payment history.

The ERC is 2% for the fixed rate term, with overpayments of 10% a year allowed. The maximum loan is £500,000.

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Ray Boulger, senior technical manager of John Charcol, said: “Although both Newbury and Saffron will naturally carry out a credit check, critically neither lender credit scores. Instead, both employ sensible human underwriters, not a computer, to assess all applications.

“The ‘computer says no’ approach adopted by too many of the larger lenders is anathema to both these lenders and applications will be considered on their merits even if all the boxes can’t be ticked.

“This is particularly relevant for first-time buyers. One of the bizarre impacts of credit scoring is that someone who has been thrifty by saving regularly for a deposit or anything else, but never borrowed any money, gets a lower score than someone who has never saved but has a couple of maxed out credit cards on which they pay the minimum each month.”