Criteria guide

Our lending criteria

You’ll find a snapshot of our buy-to-let lending criteria on this page. But if you can’t find what you’re looking for, or you’re working on a more complex case and need some help, get in touch with our team.

Loan Structure

We will take the first legal charge on a security, and we do not consent to second charges or do further advances.

If the property is leasehold and the applicant either has an interest in the freehold or has a connection to the freeholder, we will require a charge over the freehold as well as a first legal charge over the leasehold title. This will require the consent of other owners of the freehold, including those who may not be party to the mortgage over the leasehold interest.

Offers are valid for 90 days. (Up to 180 days for New Build Properties).

Fleet Mortgages reserves the right to ask the borrower to select a new rate if the case has not progressed to offer within 90 days of the application being submitted, which will also result in new credit checks being carried out.

We accept capital and interest repayment, part interest and part repayment and interest only repayment.

Minimum mortgage term is 5 years, and the maximum is 30 years (subject to the applicants age). We will potentially lend up to £5,000,000 per obligor with the first £1,000,000 at a maximum 80% LTV (subject to product availability) and then 75% thereafter.

We will accept purchase or remortgage applications and will consider capital raising for most legal purposes (except for paying tax and gambling debts). Payment of Inheritance Tax or Capital Gains Tax may be considered where the proposal does not suggest a position of financial stress for the applicants.

If the property has been owned for less than 6 months, we can consider lending on a case-by-case basis.

For full details, please refer to the full Criteria Guide for any further information.

For LTV scale and minimum and maximum loans please refer to the scale.

Who will we lend to?

All applicants must be resident in the UK, have resided here for the last 3 years, be liable to UK tax and have permanent rights to reside.

The primary applicant must currently own a property and have done so for the last 12 months. They will need to be over the age of 21 and be able to prove an income in excess of £15,000 p.a. First-time landlords need to be a minimum age of 25. We do not accept first time buyers.

The primary applicant must have been employed in continuous employment for at least 12 months and have passed their probation period or have been self-employed, contracting or trading for at least 2 years in their current business. We will consider retired applicants provided that they can meet the minimum income requirements.

We will accept a maximum of 4 applicants per application and all applicants must be a minimum of 21 years old and a maximum age of 95 at the end of the mortgage term.

We will consider lending to limited companies which must be special purpose vehicles (SPV) registered within England and Wales with one or more of the following SIC Codes: 68100 68209 68320 68201.

We can accept a maximum of 4 applicants.

All directors and any shareholders with a 25% or greater holding must be party to the mortgage and where the cumulative total of these applicants’ shareholding is below 75%, further shareholders will need to be added until a 75% shareholding is reached. For full details, please refer to our Criteria Guide or contact our sales team.

We will consider applications where individuals are ‘transferring’ (selling) properties to an SPV limited company they own. We would class this as a purchase.

If any of the SPV’s shares are held by another corporate entity, or the SPV holds shares in another corporate entity, please check with your BDM before you submit the case as there are some restrictions in place.

All applicants are subject to credit checks and credit scoring and adverse credit will affect the lending decision. Please refer to the full Criteria Guide for further information.

What type of properties will we lend on?

We will only lend on properties in England and Wales that are freehold or leasehold tenure, we do not accept commonhold.

If the property is a leasehold, it must have at least a 75 year unexpired term on completion with a minimum of 50 years at expiry of the mortgage term.

Where the security is located in a block of flats, the block can be up to 5 storeys (up to 10 storeys are acceptable within the M25). Blocks of flats exceeding 4 storeys in height (excluding basement floors but including ground floor, i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 floors) MUST have lift access to all floors, in order to be acceptable.

All properties should be tenanted on an AST of up to 3 years, we will also consider.

• Student lets
• Corporate lets (prior approval required)
• Local Authority & Housing Association lets (prior approval required)
• Standard format of Private Sector Lease as per the UK Finance Mortgage Lenders’ Handbook.

We can consider lending against standard residential houses and flats, HMOs up to 6 bedrooms and MUFBs up to 10 self-contained units as well as ex-local authority houses and flats, including flats with deck access, new builds and converted properties.

For a full list of acceptable security and construction types, please refer to the acceptable and unacceptable list

Sources of deposit

We will require documentary evidence of the source of any deposit. For example, bank statements showing a build-up of savings or completion statements showing the sale of a property.

Gifts from immediate family members (spouse, mother, father, sibling, or grandparent) are allowed.

Please refer to the proof of deposit documents below

Portfolio landlords

We have a different underwriting process for portfolio landlords. You will find all the details of how to submit your application, as well as useful documents to help guide you through the process, on our website.

How we define a Portfolio Landlord

Portfolio Landlords are classed as all applicants, individually or collectively, who own four or more existing mortgaged BTL properties or three properties where an application is being submitted to Fleet to purchase a fourth.

CoreLogic Buy to Let Hub

We work with CoreLogic to give our intermediary partners access to the Buy to Let Hub. This makes it quick and easy for you to submit details of your clients’ property portfolio to us.

If you already have previous data stored within the hub you can use that information to create a new portfolio submission for Fleet Mortgages.

To commence underwriting, both an Existing Property Portfolio Schedule and Portfolio Landlord Questionnaire are required:

1. Existing Property Portfolio Schedule

Where all applicants, individually or collectively, own four or more existing mortgaged BTL properties, or three mortgaged properties where an application is being submitted to Fleet to purchase a fourth, we will request a property schedule that details the portfolio. Information is gathered via CoreLogic (Buy to Let Hub), allowing instant submission in real-time direct to our underwriters. Our underwriters will stress test the whole portfolio at 125% @ 5% with a maximum overall LTV of 75%.

You can enter the details of your client’s property portfolio directly into a spreadsheet which you can download here. You can then upload the completed spreadsheet directly to the BTL Hub.

2. Portfolio Landlords Questionnaire

We have combined a simple business plan and cashflow forecast into an easy-to-complete questionnaire. Only existing landlords are required to complete the questionnaire.

BTL Hub User Guide

We have created a step-by-step guide to help you when using the Buy to Let Hub, including FAQs.

Please note:

• There are no changes to the DIP or application system;
• Portfolio applications will be assessed by dedicated Underwriters;
• To minimise the underwriting time, please upload the Portfolio Landlords Questionnaire via Fleet’s Broker Portal before submitting the CoreLogic property schedule.