Buy to Let

Buy to Let mortgages policies and processes 

ONLY FOR USE BY MORTGAGE INTERMEDIARIES

Buy to Let policies and Income Coverage ratios, along with your client’s eligibility.

Our Buy to Let mortgages at a glance

We can help customers get onto the Buy to Let property ladder where they have never owned a property before, as well as helping customers who have a property portfolio.

Eligibility and criteria

Let to Buy

We can accept Let to Buy applications and our standard BTL criteria applies.

Note - Changing from a residential to a BTL is not considered like-for-like.

Please key this as ‘Remortgage with additional borrowing’ on our calculator.

Consumer Buy to Let

Our approach to identifying a consumer Buy to Let is based on how the customer views their Buy to Let activity. Where the customer intends to benefit from house price growth or rental income we will class this as Investment purposes and not a consumer BTL. 

We don’t offer consumer BTL mortgages.

Sourcing Tip - If property will be used as an investment property, ensure that sourcing isn’t filtered by Consumer Buy to Let so that NatWest appears on your sourcing.

Regulated Buy to Let

A regulated BTL is where the property will be rented out to an immediate family member.

We don’t currently support regulated Buy to Let.

Additional borrowing

Where a customer requests additional borrowing on a buy to let property, applications can’t be considered in the following circumstances:

  • Any gambling purchase.

  • Any form of business purpose (i.e. start up for a new business).

  • We will not offer the customer any form of Unsecured Debt Consolidation.

If a customer is raising funds for an onward purchase, we need to know the intended property. The underwriter may request:

  • Where this will be mortgaged - a KFI or mortgage offer for the intended purchase. 

  • If this will be bought for cash- a copy of the memorandum of sale. 

  • An ARLA letter where a rental property is being purchased.

Keying the application

Rental income from either the subject or background properties should not be keyed as an income source on the Agreement in Principal or the Full Mortgage Application.

All background property information including from individual rental properties will be captured in the application.

For employed clients who are unable to verify their income in line with our packaging requirements income should be keyed as £0. 

Where the client has a Holiday Let in the background this will be included within our maximum portfolio criteria.

Valuations

A physical valuation is required.

Rental income for the application will be based on the market rental as indicated on the valuation report or the rental received whichever is lower

Procuration fees

0.45% gross (both DA and AR firms). £250 minimum. Please see Procuration Fees.

FAQs

Next steps

See how much your client can borrow with our affordability calculators.

Check out our hub for small and portfolio landlords.

If you'd like further guidance on our other policies, please visit our lending criteria page.