Pepper Money has made changes to its buy-to-let (BTL) criteria.

The lender has reduced minimum income requirements to £15,000 for existing landlords and lifted some restrictions around limited companies. 

Additional changes have been introduced including 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, Pepper Money 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 is also now able to 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. 

 Pepper Money sales director Paul Adams says: “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 buy-to-let customers and there’s more where this came from, so I’d encourage brokers to get registered with Pepper Money ahead of further improvements to our Buy to Let range this year.”