We’re pleased to announce some positive changes to our residential lending criteria effective from Friday 7th May.

The changes, fully detailed below, include an enhancement to our bonus criteria to support greater affordability across your employed client base and also, for your non-UK national clients, we’re reducing the documentation we require when processing their applications.

Bonus enhancements
We’re increasing the proportion of quarterly/annual bonus used to support affordability from 25% to 50%. You don’t need to do anything differently when recording bonuses during an application; the system will automatically apply the relevant calculations.

This policy will be in effect from Friday 7 May:
• New cases, created from today, Friday 7 May, will be subject to the new policy with 50% of bonus utilised in affordability (where applicable)
• Where applicable, existing cases created before 7 May, will continue to be assessed under the policy in place at the time the case was initiated

Requirements for non-UK nationals
All non-UK and Non-RoI nationals are required to prove their residency status in the UK.
From Friday 7 May the following documents will no longer be requested for residential mortgage applicants who have permanent rights to reside or pre-settled status and have lived in the UK for at least 2 years:

• Proof of deposit;
• Three months’ bank statements;
• Three months’ payslips.

Note: If applicants do not have permanent rights to reside or pre-settled status and/or have not lived in the UK for at least 2 years these documents are still required and need to be submitted at point of application in order to avoid delays.

Please be advised the affordability calculator on our website have been updated to reflect the changes.