Complete FS is urging buy-to-let lenders to review their insistence on a minimum income requirement in assessing clients for funding.

The South Coast-based packager says it has seen a surge in buy-to-let business over the past two years and argues that the income requirement needs to be reviewed, particularly in line with the resurgence of property prices and the demand for rental property that is driving increasing rental figures.

Tony Salentino, director of Complete FS, said recent figures from Knight Frank show that private sector properties delivered an average total return of 11.3% in 2013, leading to the insistence on a personal income requirement becoming an anachronism.

He said: :Lenders like Kent Reliance and Birmingham Midshires have sensibly dropped the income requirement, but the majority are still clinging to a demand which has become as useful as the human appendix. No one is sure why it is there any more as evolution has made it redundant, but it continues to cause problems.

“The property market has moved on in five years and while lenders need to exercise due care with every application, this is becoming more and more of an anomaly, when the most important calculation is affordability based on rental income.

“It is definitely time for a wholesale change of heart.”