Helping Hand minimum income reductions

From Wednesday 16 July we're reducing the minimum incomes for both sole and joint applicants.

Sole applicants - £30,000 (reduced from £35,000)

Joint applicants - £50,000 (reduced from £55,000)

This change follows the Prudential Regulation Authority’s (PRA) announcement that enables lenders to increase high loan to income (LTI) lending. Prior to the PRA announcement last week, lenders could only offer a limited amount of loans at or above 4.5 times a borrower’s income. This was capped at 15% of eligible new loans.

We have now applied to the PRA to increase our high LTI lending capacity, of which the vast majority is done through Helping Hand, which has helped around 60,000 first time buyers since launching in 2021.

In 2024, we helped more first time buyers than any other lender, and we've moved quickly so that we can support even more people onto the property ladder.

As a reminder, with Helping Hand your first time buyers could borrow up to 6x their income. It's available:

Up to 95% LTV (including new build houses)
Across our 5 and 10 year fixed rate mortgages

They'll also enjoy £500 cashback on completion - with up to £500 more for energy efficient homes.

Our Helping Hand page will be updated tomorrow.