Virgin Money has updated its lending criteria to include a broader range of benefits in its affordability assessment.
The lender will now include 15 different types of benefits, including adult disability payment, carer’s allowance, child benefit and child tax credits, working and family tax credit, employment and support allowance, incapacity benefit, personal independent payment, reduced earnings allowance, universal credit and war disablement pension.
In order to include universal credit Virgin Money stipulates that at least one application must be in receipt of earned income, with any housing benefit received deducted from this income. Child Benefit is not included if one applicant earns over £60,000 a year – as this benefit is removed via tax adjustments.
