Pepper Money has reduced its minimum income requirements to £15,000 for existing landlords as part of several changes to its buy-to-let (BTL) criteria.

The specialist lender has also lifted some restrictions around limited companies.

Pepper Money has introduced additional changes to make its BTL proposition accessible to a broader group of customers. These include allowing gifted deposits, reducing the required time in current employment from six months to three months and the time required for continuous employment from 12 months to six months.

On its limited company BTL proposition, the lender has removed the restriction for the main director to be a homeowner and will now allow deposits into a BTL special purpose vehicle (SPV), as cash or property transfer, from another limited company. Pepper Money will now also allow rental income as a standalone income stream for professional landlords with 11 properties or more and has increased its maximum loan from £1m to £2m and aggregated customer exposure from £3m to £4m.

“We’re delighted to open up our proposition to more BTL customers with our latest criteria improvements, which mean we now allow gifted deposits and require fewer months of continuous employment,” Pepper Money sales director, Paul Adams.

“A growing number of landlords are choosing to build portfolios within limited company structures, and this has been another key area of focus for us in enhancing our proposition. Our transparent and hands-on approach to underwriting supports these improvements to our criteria.

“They will provide new options for brokers to place applications for their BTL customers, there's more where this came from, so I’d encourage brokers to get registered with Pepper Money ahead of further improvements to our BTL range this year.”

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