Accord confirmed the office had been deep-cleaned and in line with government guidelines, affected colleagues had been asked to self-isolate.

As a result, Accord will be temporarily working with a reduced number of underwriters.

Jeremy Duncombe, Accord’s managing director said: “Our priority has always been the health and wellbeing of our colleagues, so we have taken the decision to withdraw products at 75% and 80% LTV to ensure service levels can be managed with our reduced capacity.

“Whilst we are doing everything we can to minimise the impact to service, in these exceptional circumstances with less underwriters available, there are likely to be some delays, so we advise brokers to check the current turnaround times on our website in order to manage client expectations.

“We expect this to be a very temporary pause on lending at these tiers and are still accepting applications on all other products within our range.”