Vida has revamped credit tiers across its residential and buy-to-let loans and loosened its criteria. 

The specialist lender has cut its previous five tiers to three: Vida 36, Vida 24, and Vida 6. 

It says these tiers will help those with “historical adverse or minor blips to get the best products and rates available to them”. 

Part of the move sees the firm combine its previous Vida 48 and Vida 36 tiers, for borrowers with historical county court judgments, or defaults that are three years old. 

It says all customers who qualify for Vida 36 tier will now be offered Vida’s lowest range of rates, “even where unsecured payments of up to £250 in total, helping borrowers who, for example, may have missed a store card, or car loan repayment, but still have a desire to obtain, or switch, a mortgage”. 

The lender’s criteria changes include: 

• Child benefit income accepted up to 100% and tips up to 75% 
• Back-to-back remortgages considered within six months 
• Boosted support for non-standard property types 
• Cases considered where evidence of self-employed income is up to 18 months old, subject to the provision of relevant bank statements 
• Payslips are now accepted as evidence of income for contractors working under the Construction Industry Scheme 

Vida chief executive Anth Mooney says: “As the specialist lender, we recognise that sometimes people have a minor blip or historical adverse and we want to give these borrowers as good an opportunity as possible to find a place to call home, which is why we have simplified our credit tiers. 

“We are always striving to improve our proposition and in a time of increasing interest rates and high inflation, we want to support people with affordability by increasing the types of income we can accept, alongside other criteria enhancements across residential and BTL.”