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.

Service charges must be reasonable and not exceed either 1% of the market value or the amount of £5,000, whichever is the lower. Fleet may consider service charges up to 1.5% of the current market value on a case-by-case basis.

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 35 years (subject to the applicant’s age).

Fleet Mortgages can lend up to total borrowing of £5 million per obligor provided the overall portfolio LTV does not exceed 75%.

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, including LTV scale, and minimum and maximum loans, please refer to the full Criteria Guide for any further information.

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 although there is no minimum income requirement, the primary applicant must declare their income. We do not accept first time buyers.

The primary applicant must have been employed in continuous employment for at least 12 months or have been self-employed, contracting or trading for at least 1 full tax year. We will consider retired applicants provided that they are in receipt of pension or other income types i.e. investments.

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 (holding companies can also have the following SIC codes are 64209. 64203).

Multi layered company structures can be considered.

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.

Full personal guarantee will be obtained, and all guarantors will be required to take independent legal advice.

We will consider applications where individuals are ‘transferring’ (selling) properties to an SPV limited company they own. We would class this as a purchase. For full details, please refer to our Criteria Guide or contact our sales team.

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, the lease must have at least 85 years 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, high rise blocks are acceptable.

Ex-local authority flats 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.

Properties must be let on the following types of tenancy and must meet the specific requirements set out in the Criteria Guide:

• Assured Shorthold Tenancies (ASTs), or in Wales, Standard Occupation Contracts (SOCs)
• Corporate Tenancies of wholly residential property, including to Local Authorities, Housing Associations, Registered Social Housing Providers and Charities
• Shared Households and Student Lets provided the property is not on a student campus

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.

Cotality Buy to Let Hub

We work with Cotality 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.

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 Cotality (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 from the link below. 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.