Pepper Money has made changes to its buy-to-let criteria, including reducing minimum income requirements to £15,000 for existing landlords, and lifting some restrictions around limited companies.

The specialist lender has also introduced additional changes to make its buy-to-let proposition accessible to a broader group of customers. These include 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 buy-to-let proposition, Pepper Money has removed the restriction for the main director to be a homeowner and will now allow deposits into a buy-to-let Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), as cash or property transfer, from another limited company.

The lender 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.

Paul Adams, sales director at Pepper Money, said: “At Pepper Money, we are constantly striving to make it as easy as possible for new customers to experience our award-winning service and access our straightforward mortgages.

“So, we’re delighted to open up our proposition to more buy-to-let customers with our latest criteria improvements, which mean we now allow gifted deposits and require fewer months of continuous employment.

“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, 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.”