Mercantile Trust has made a series of changes across its buy-to-let proposition.

Lending criteria now includes the following:

• Top slicing now available using surplus rental income from the portfolio
• No minimum income
• First time landlord, first time buyers with no requirement for a main residence
• Houses in Multiple Occupation (HMOs) accepted
• DSS tenants accepted
• No credit scoring

The specialist buy-to-let, bridging and commercial lender will also now allow landlords to have two units of adverse credit over the past 12 months, ignoring anything over 12 months.

Items no longer taken into account include:

• Mail order and communications/telecoms missed payments
• Discharged bankrupts over three years old
• IVAs: must be maintained, up-to-date and being settled with loan
• Partially missed mortgage payments
• Outstanding CCJs if under £300; under £3,000 and satisfied, and all over 12 months old
• Utility bills ignored if accounts are two or fewer payments in arrears, irrelevant of previous account conduct

The lender has also reduced its pricing, along with adding new two and five-year fixed rate options to its product range.

Maeve Ward (pictured), director of commercial operations at Mercantile Trust, said: “The comprehensive changes to our buy-to-let proposition are a signal to the market that we have a real appetite to lend. Our range offers products to cater for all situations and landlords of varying experience, with criteria that caters for landlords who do not fit many specialist lender borrower profiles.

“Our experience allows us to provide lending solutions to sectors and customers traditionally underserved and these new enhancements will further increase the types of borrowers we can support providing more options to our brokers.”