Portfolio landlord finance.
At four mortgaged properties you stop being underwritten property by property and start being underwritten as a business. Here is what changes, and what to have ready.
Four mortgaged properties, and the rules change.
Once you hold four or more mortgaged buy-to-let properties, lenders treat you as a portfolio landlord. The threshold counts mortgaged properties across the whole portfolio, including ones held personally alongside ones held in a company, and including your share of anything held jointly.
What changes is not the product so much as the underwriting. Below four, a lender broadly looks at the property in front of it. At four and above, it looks at everything you own, and a single weak asset elsewhere in the portfolio can affect a case that would otherwise have been straightforward.
This page is about portfolio lending to limited companies, SPVs and corporate borrowers. We are a credit broker, not a lender, and the finance we arrange is secured on investment property rather than on a home you live in.
You are underwritten as a business now.
This is the part that catches people out on their fifth purchase, having had no trouble with the first four.
- The whole portfolio is assessed. Not just the property being bought or remortgaged. Lenders look at total borrowing, total value and the rental income across everything.
- Background portfolio stress testing. Most lenders apply a rental cover test to the rest of your portfolio as well as to the new property. A portfolio that averages out fine can still fail if the test is applied property by property.
- Overall loan to value caps. Many lenders cap gearing across the portfolio as a whole, separately from the loan to value on the individual property.
- A business plan and cash flow. Some lenders ask for a written plan: what you own, what you intend to buy, how it is funded and what happens if rates move.
- A portfolio schedule. A full property-by-property list with values, mortgages, lenders, rates, rents and terms. Getting this right is most of the work, and having it ready is most of the speed.
- Asset composition matters. A portfolio that is all standard single lets is read differently from one heavy in HMOs, holiday lets or semi-commercial, even at the same total value.
Your portfolio schedule is the application.
More portfolio cases stall on the schedule than on the property. Lenders ask for the same core information and each wants it in a slightly different format, so the practical answer is to keep one accurate master version and reformat it per lender.
- Per property: address, tenure, current value and how it was arrived at, outstanding mortgage, lender, product and rate, when the product ends, monthly rent, and how the property is held.
- Per property: whether it is a single let, an HMO, a multi-unit block or something else, and any licensing or Article 4 position.
- Across the portfolio: total value, total debt, overall loan to value and total rental income.
Two things are worth saying plainly. Valuations you have carried forward for years are the most common source of a refused case, because a lender will test them. And a product ending in the next few months on any property in the schedule is worth flagging yourself rather than letting a lender find it.
One company, several, or a mix.
- A single SPV holding everything. Simplest to administer and usually the easiest for lenders to read. The trade-off is that a problem with one property sits in the same entity as the rest. SPV mortgages →
- One SPV per property. Cleanly ring-fenced, and some lenders prefer it. Multiplies the accountancy and filing cost, and the personal guarantees stack up regardless.
- A holding company with subsidiaries. Common at larger portfolio sizes. Fewer lenders are comfortable with it, and the ones that are will look at the whole group.
- Personal and company mixed. Very common in practice, and the thing to know is that the four-property count spans both. Moving personally held property into a company is usually expensive, because the company pays stamp duty on market value and you may face capital gains on the way out. The company versus personal question →
Which structure suits you is partly a tax question and partly a lending one. The tax half belongs to your accountant. The lending half is ours, and the useful version of it is knowing what your target lenders will accept before you incorporate anything.
Portfolio cases are placed, not shopped.
- Lender selection comes first. Portfolio appetite varies enormously and changes often. Placing the case with a lender whose criteria already fit beats negotiating with one whose do not.
- The schedule gets prepared properly. We will tell you what will trip the background stress test before it is submitted, not after it has been declined.
- Refinancing is looked at across the portfolio. Product end dates rarely line up. Sequencing remortgages, and sometimes releasing equity from a stronger asset to support a weaker purchase, is where most of the value sits.
- Short-term needs are separated out. Buying at auction or refurbishing to add value is a bridging question, not a term one. Bridging finance →
Company buy-to-let rates → · HMO mortgages → · Finance calculator →
Portfolio landlord questions.
What counts as a portfolio landlord?
Four or more mortgaged buy-to-let properties. The count spans everything you hold, personally and through companies, including your share of jointly held property. Unmortgaged properties do not count towards the threshold, though lenders will still want to know about them.
Why has borrowing got harder since my fourth property?
Because you crossed into portfolio underwriting. The lender now assesses your whole portfolio rather than the single property, applies a rental cover test to the background portfolio, and may cap gearing across everything you own.
Do all lenders treat portfolios the same way?
No, and the differences are large. Maximum portfolio size, overall gearing caps, how the background stress test is applied and appetite for HMOs and multi-unit blocks all vary. Choosing the right lender at the start is most of the job.
Should I hold my portfolio in one company or several?
One SPV holding everything is simplest and usually easiest to place. One per property ring-fences risk at the cost of more administration. A holding structure is common at larger sizes but narrows the lender pool. The tax side of the answer is your accountant's.
Can you help if part of my portfolio is held personally?
We can arrange the company and SPV borrowing, and we will factor the personally held property into the portfolio picture because lenders do. We do not arrange lending to individuals; we work with limited companies, SPVs and corporate borrowers only.
Tell us about the deal.
- Call0333 577 1988
- WhatsApp07977 486886
We arrange finance for limited companies, SPVs and corporate borrowers only.