Buy-to-letMay 7 2019

Precise changes affordability test

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Precise changes affordability test
Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg

Specialist lender Precise Mortgages has made top slicing available across its buy-to-let mortgage range.

Top-slicing is where a buy-to-let lender uses a borrower’s personal income — surplus funds from their portfolio of houses or earned income — to demonstrate they could meet any potential financial stresses on their new property application.

This extra capital can help top up any shortfall if the rental price of the property does not meet the required amount needed for the loan. 

Precise is now accepting top-slicing on all eligible personal ownership, limited company, portfolio, house of multiple occupancy, and holiday and student let applications, but first-time buyers are excluded.

The lender hopes this will make its two-year fixed rate buy-to-let mortgages more accessible and give consumers a wider range of products to choose from.

Alan Cleary, managing director at Precise Mortgages, said the firm was always thinking of new ways to help more customers get the buy-to-let mortgage they want.

He said: "By making our top slicing feature available across our entire buy-to-let range, it creates greater access to our two-year fixed rate products, opening up options to more customers, particularly those who might have been restricted by requirements in the past."

Andy Fairclough, partner at the Specialist Finance Centre, said: "This is a very useful approach to the market and we have many clients who have significant portfolios and more complex but high income streams, that when added together demonstrate a strong ability to service debt.

"This helps support what are great and highly entrepreneurial projects and represents a sensible move for good deals."

imogen.tew@ft.com