If you’ve been thinking of growing your portfolio, this is worth a look.
The Mortgage Works has made a series of changes (announced 27th October 2025 – but this isn’t ancient history, it’s still relevant and hardly anyone talked about it) aimed directly at investors holding property through limited companies, and those who want to increase their buy-to-let borrowing.
Good news, broadly.
But as always, the devil is in the detail. The devil has a season ticket for buy-to-let finance, apparently.
What’s changed?
The headline change is that The Mortgage Works has increased the maximum loan per property to £2 million for buy-to-let and limited company applications.
For let-to-buy cases, the cap has moved to £1 million.
They have also increased their total maximum borrowing limit across the Nationwide Group to £7.5 million.
That matters if you are building a larger portfolio, refinancing higher-value property, or operating in areas where £500,000 doesn’t buy quite what it used to.
Which is most places now, annoyingly.
There are also useful process changes.
The Mortgage Works now supports Decision in Principle applications for limited company purchase and remortgage cases.
The DIP process leaves a soft footprint on the credit file, with a hard footprint only when the full mortgage application is submitted.
That is useful because it gives investors and brokers a cleaner way to test whether a case is likely to work before committing too far.
It does not mean the deal will definitely complete.
But it may mean you can spot problems earlier.
And in property finance, “finding out sooner” is often very underrated.
Limited company shareholder rules
There has also been a useful change to the way The Mortgage Works treats minority shareholders in limited company structures.
A limited company can now have up to four minority shareholders, with each holding no more than 20%, and with a combined maximum shareholding of 25%.
Those minority shareholders do not need to be part of the mortgage, and they will not be credit assessed or asked to sign a personal guarantee.
That could reduce friction where a company has a slightly more complicated ownership structure.
But let’s not get carried away.
TMW’s current criteria still require the personal details of minority shareholders to be captured, and minority shareholders must be related to at least one of the named applicants.
So this is helpful, but it is not a free pass to create some weird property syndicate with your mate’s cousin’s dog walker and hope the lender won’t notice.
They will notice.
They always notice the boring stuff.
Portfolio ICR changes
The other important change is around aggregate portfolio borrowing.
TMW has split its background Interest Cover Ratio policy.
For properties already held within a limited company structure, the minimum aggregate ICR is now 125%.
For personally owned properties, it remains 145%.
The stress rate and maximum aggregate LTV still apply, so this is not an open cheque book.
But for investors with portfolio properties held in limited companies, it may make the background portfolio assessment a little more workable.
That is significant because affordability is often where perfectly sensible-looking cases start to wobble.
Not because the investor is doing anything reckless, necessarily, but because the lender’s calculation says “no thank you” in a very calm, spreadsheet-based voice.
Why this matters
For investors looking to scale, these are meaningful changes.
The higher loan cap gives more flexibility for larger assets or higher-value areas.
The limited company DIP gives earlier clarity before everyone wastes time, money and goodwill.
The minority shareholder change may help investors with family company structures.
And the portfolio ICR change suggests The Mortgage Works wants to remain relevant to more professional, portfolio-scale investors, not just people buying one or two smaller single lets.
That is worth noticing.
Not because it suddenly makes buy-to-let easy again.
It doesn’t.
But it does suggest lender appetite is still there for the right cases.
And lender appetite matters.
When lenders start sharpening criteria in favour of portfolio investors, even slightly, it tells us something about where they want business to come from.
The caveats
Just because you can borrow up to £2 million on a property does not mean you should.
Bigger borrowing brings bigger risk.
The rent still has to support the debt. The property still has to stack. Your cashflow still needs to survive voids, repairs, management, maintenance, insurance, tax, regulation and all the other little joys that make property investing such a relaxing hobby.
The limited company ICR treatment only helps where properties are actually held in the company structure.
If you have a mixed portfolio with some properties owned personally and some in a company, the rules can diverge.
That is not necessarily a problem, but it does mean you need a broker who understands the whole picture, not just the next mortgage application.
The shareholder rules are also helpful, but they still need to fit TMW’s criteria.
You still need the right SPV structure, correct SIC codes, clean Companies House records and a business bank account.
In other words, grown-up admin.
Nobody likes grown-up admin.
But grown-up admin is often the difference between a smooth application and three weeks of everyone pretending they are “just waiting on underwriting”.
So what should investors do?
If you are using a limited company structure, or planning to, check your company setup with your broker before you apply.
Do not assume your structure fits.
Check it.
If you have minority shareholders, make sure they fit TMW’s current criteria.
If you are growing a portfolio, ask your broker how the portfolio ICR rules apply to your existing properties, not just the new purchase.
That distinction matters.
You should also model your deals properly.
Run the rent.
Run the debt.
Run the stress test.
And then run a version where something goes wrong, because something usually does.
Not always catastrophically.
Sometimes just irritatingly.
But irritating things still cost money.
Bottom line
This is a positive update from The Mortgage Works.
It gives more capacity, more flexibility and a cleaner route for some limited company and portfolio investors.
But it does not change the fundamentals.
The deal still needs to work.
The rent still needs to cover the debt.
The structure still needs to fit the lender’s criteria.
And bigger borrowing is not the same as better investing.
So yes, this is good news.
But it is not a green light to over-leverage.
It is a reminder that lenders are still open for sensible, well-structured buy-to-let business.
Which, in the current market, is no bad thing.
As ever, this isn’t advice. Don’t draw down loans or mortgages without taking advice from a good mortgage broker.
If you don’t have a mortgage broker, or you’d like a second opinion, I’ll be happy to introduce you to mine.
Just email me at:
and I’ll make the introduction.
Here’s to successful property investing.
Peter Jones
Author, property investor & ex-Chartered Surveyor
P.S. If you’d like help thinking through your buy-to-let strategy properly, you might find my Successful Property Investor’s Strategy Workshop useful.
You can find out more here:
