We remain the largest lender consistently offering 90% mortgages to First Time Buyers (FTB). And we continue to look for ways of providing better service to you, our intermediary partners – which is why, with demand still high, we’re making some improvements from Tuesday 27 October.

This change means your FTB applications could now receive an Accept decision without needing to be fully underwritten – and receive an initial assessment within our standard timescales. Don’t forget, if you receive a Refer decision, you’ll still need to follow the correct process.

At the same time, we’re temporarily changing our maximum LTV for self-employed borrowers to 85% to align with other major lenders in the market. However, as with all lending policies, we’ll continue to review our approach and hope to relax criteria in the future.

We remain committed to supporting the housing market. Any temporary changes we put in place are done to ensure that we can continue to lend responsibly, while still helping people buy their first home or move to a new home during this uncertain time.

You can find more information on self-employed criteria by visiting our website here.