BM Solutions is a specialist buy-to-let lender and the intermediary-only arm of Birmingham Midshires, part of Bank of Scotland plc within Lloyds Banking Group. It lends on buy-to-let and let-to-buy mortgages only, and only through mortgage brokers, so you cannot apply to it directly.
At YesCanDo Money, we have placed 251 mortgages with BM Solutions over the past five years. This page is based on those cases.
Who this is for: landlords buying or remortgaging a rental property, portfolio landlords, anyone whose BM deal is ending, and anyone who has been told the numbers do not work with another lender.
Why it matters: you cannot reach BM Solutions without a mortgage broker, and its advertised rate is frequently not the rate you will be offered. Both are worth knowing before you start.
Already have a BM Solutions mortgage?
When your deal ends you can switch to a new BM Solutions rate through a product transfer, borrow more with a further advance, or do nothing and fall onto their standard variable rate. Switching is usually offered the same day, and you can book a new rate up to six months early.
Our guide to BM Solutions product transfers covers all of it, including when staying beats moving and what our own cases show.
How do you find a BM Solutions mortgage broker?
BM Solutions only accepts applications through brokers, so you need one. Any broker with whole-of-market access can approach them, so the question is less about finding one who can and more about finding one who knows how BM assess a case.
Three things worth asking whoever you use: how many BM cases have they placed, do they check your EPC rating before quoting you a rate, and do they charge a fee.
We have placed 251, we check the energy rating first, and we do not charge a fee.
That keeps the conversion intent, carries the term, and turns a “you need a broker” statement into a reason to pick you.
We are a fee-free mortgage broker, so getting a mortgage with BM through us costs you nothing.
What submitting 251 BM Solutions mortgages have show us
- 251 mortgages placed with BM Solutions over five years
- 40 clients moved to BM from another lender in the last two years
- 18 clients moved away from BM to another lender over the same period
- Half of new applications got their offer within eight days
- 96% of clients switching to a new BM deal got their offer the same day
Figures taken from 251 BM Solutions applications submitted by YesCanDo Money between 2021 and 2026, measured from application to formal mortgage offer.
Where BM Solutions works well
Three things come up repeatedly in our case records, and the first is why most of our BM cases exist at all.
It often lends more than others will
This is the clearest trend in our records. On cases BM ultimately accepted, the lenders we had ruled out because they could not provide enough borrowing included HSBC, The Mortgage Works, Bank of Ireland, Leeds, Leek, Kensington, NatWest, Santander, Barclays and The Co-operative Bank.
If you have been told the numbers do not work elsewhere, BM is well worth considering. Identifying which lender will stretch furthest on a particular case is a large part of the work our mortgage advisers do before an application is submitted and, in these cases, it is why the borrowing was possible at all. Our guide to Birmingham Midshires buy-to-let mortgages works through exactly how much BM will lend and what the rent needs to cover.
It lends to portfolio landlords
Some lenders cap how many mortgaged properties you can hold. BM will lend, but it assesses your whole portfolio rather than just the property you are mortgaging, so we work through the portfolio figures first and tell you where you stand before an application goes anywhere near it.
Two places BM is more flexible than most
We placed one case where the client had under six months left on a visa. BM only asks for evidence of permanent right to reside from non-UK nationals who have lived here for less than five years, and our client had been here longer than that.
We placed another because The Mortgage Works and Virgin Money both wanted three years of UK address history and BM did not.
Where BM Solutions does not work as well
Three key factors drive clients elsewhere, with price being the most common.
The advertised rate is often not the rate you can have
The best BM Solutions products are restricted by the property’s Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating, in line with the wider move towards green mortgages. In eleven of our cases, the top BM product had to be discounted because the property did not qualify.
The bar has moved, too. These products launched in 2022, covering EPC A, B and C. Since late 2025, the Energy Efficient Home range is A or B only.
Band C is not shut out altogether; it just moves you onto standard products. There is even a Band C route to 80% loan to value, which means borrowing 80% of what the property is worth, on personal ownership buy-to-let and let-to-buy. That is useful if your deposit is the constraint. Every mortgaged property still has to reach Band E.
We check your energy rating before quoting a rate rather than after, which avoids a conversation nobody enjoys.
On rate alone, it is frequently beaten
Of the eighteen clients we moved away from BM, around half were placed with alternative lenders offering either a better rate or a fee-free product. Around a third moved because BM’s lending rules did not go far enough. That included a rental calculation another lender beat, a level of borrowing BM could not reach, a client who had only recently become self-employed, and a further advance declined because of credit card balances.
The Mortgage Works was the most common destination.
The Mortgage Works is its closest rival
Over the past two years, five of our clients moved from The Mortgage Works to BM, while five moved in the opposite direction. Which lender comes out on top depends on the numbers for your specific property, so we assess both rather than making assumptions. As a whole-of-market broker, we have no reason to favour one over the other.
Client case study: keeping your home, renting it out and buying another
Grant Humphries, CeMAP, one of our mortgage advisers, on a recent case.
The situation. My clients had outgrown their house but did not want to sell it. It was in a good spot, the rent would cover the costs comfortably, and they had always talked about keeping it as a long-term investment. The difficulty was that everything had to happen at once. The deposit for the new house had to come out of the equity in the old one, which meant releasing money from a property that was about to become a rental at the same time as taking a mortgage on the new one. Two applications, with the numbers on each affecting the other. They were also clear that the payments across both had to be something they could genuinely live with, not something that only worked on paper.
What I did. This is the sort of case where a lender’s rules matter more than its rate. Plenty of lenders will quote a headline number and then fall over once they see what the case actually involves. I recommended BM Solutions because it could handle all three parts of it. It accepted the level of borrowing needed on the let-to-buy. It let us add the product fee to the mortgage, so nothing had to be found up front at a point when every spare pound was going into the purchase. And it offered a competitive five-year fixed rate. The five-year part was deliberate: my clients wanted to know exactly what they were paying while they settled into a bigger home and took on being landlords for the first time.
The outcome. Both transactions completed. They are in the new house, the old one is let, and they know what their payments are until 2031.
What does BM Solutions lend on?
Buy-to-let and let-to-buy mortgages, held either personally or through a limited company set up to hold property. BM Solutions does not offer residential mortgages.
How much you can borrow depends far more on the rent than the deposit, and the calculation differs depending on your tax band and how you hold the property. Our guide to Birmingham Midshires buy to let mortgages works through the sum and shows what we have seen across 251 cases.
How quickly does BM Solutions issue an offer?
We measured every BM application YesCanDo Money submitted over five years. For how it compares with the rest of the market, see our research on the fastest mortgage lenders in the UK.
| Staying with BM and switching deals | New application to BM | |
|---|---|---|
| Cases measured | 122 | 118 |
| Same day | 96% | 5% |
| Within a week | 99% | 47% |
| Within a month | 100% | 84% |
| Slowest case | 9 days | 140 days |
Half of all new applications had their offer within eight days. The average works out higher, at around sixteen days, because a small number of complicated cases took a lot longer and drag the average up. That is why we have shown you the spread rather than a single number.
Eighty of those 118 cases were buy-to-let remortgages, and sixteen were purchases, so these figures describe remortgage speed well and purchase speed only loosely.
The slow cases are almost always the complicated ones rather than the lender being slow. Getting the paperwork and the lending rules right before submission is the single biggest thing that keeps a case out of that tail.
What rates is BM Solutions offering?
Two things to watch when you look:
- The best-priced products may be energy efficient products, only available if your property meets BM’s current EPC requirement.
- The rate is only half of it. On smaller loans, a fee-free product at a slightly higher rate often beats the lowest rate with a large fee. Our guide to product fees on mortgages explains how that maths works. We work out the true cost across the term, and in our cases that frequently decides whether BM wins.
Rates are subject to change and to your circumstances. Anything shown is an indication rather than an offer.
How applying for a BM Solutions mortgage works
Five stages, and the middle one is where the time goes.
- Fit check. Affordability, EPC, portfolio limits and ownership structure, all worked out before anything is submitted.
- Application submitted through BM’s broker system. There is nothing for you to log into.
- Assessment and valuation. BM assesses the case and, for new lending, instructs a valuation. This is the part that takes the time.
- Offer issued to us, and we send it straight to you.
- Completion. Your solicitor handles it. For a product transfer, there is usually no solicitor at all.
Are BM Solutions’ reviews as bad as they look?
Its public review scores are poor, but most of those reviews are not from landlords getting a mortgage. They come from former savings customers, existing borrowers dealing with account admin, and borrowers in arrears.
Three themes are worth knowing if you are applying now:
- Down-valuations come up repeatedly, so plan for it if your case depends on a particular value.
- Direct contact is slow if you ever need to speak to BM yourself about an existing mortgage.
- Scottish borrowers have reported needing their own solicitor to remove BM’s charge after the mortgage is repaid, where some lenders handle it themselves.
From our side, across 251 cases, BM is quick to offer and generous on affordability. Both things can be true. It is also worth saying that as a broker-only lender, almost all of your dealings during an application are with us rather than with BM, and chasing them when something needs chasing is our job, not yours. You can read our own client reviews if you want a sense of how we work.
BM Solutions criteria at a glance
Correct as of July 2026. Lending rules can change quite often, so treat this as a starting point rather than a guarantee.
| Lends on | Buy-to-let and let-to-buy. No residential mortgages. |
| Access | Mortgage brokers only |
| Maximum borrowing | 75% of the property value on standard lending, or 80% on a separate product for Band C properties in personal ownership. Up to £1 million at 75%, rising to £2 million at 50%. |
| Product types | Fixed rate and tracker |
| Energy efficient range | EPC restricted. The Energy Efficient Home range is Band A or B from late 2025. Every mortgaged property must reach Band E. |
| Shared houses | Up to five unrelated tenants on one tenancy agreement. Not separate individual tenancies, bedsits or hostel-type property. |
| Foreign nationals | Anyone who has lived in the UK for less than five years needs evidence of permanent right to reside |
| Unusual properties | Strict. Non-standard construction, flats above shops and similar are often better placed elsewhere. |
| Existing customers | Can secure a new rate up to six months before the current deal ends |
For who can apply, what the rent needs to cover and how much BM Solutions will lend, see our guide to Birmingham Midshires buy to let mortgages.
Common questions
Is BM Solutions the same as Birmingham Midshires?
Yes. BM Solutions is the brand Birmingham Midshires uses for its broker-only buy-to-let business.
Who owns BM Solutions?
Birmingham Midshires is a division of Bank of Scotland plc, which is part of Lloyds Banking Group. Halifax acquired Birmingham Midshires in 1999 and Lloyds acquired HBOS in 2009.
What has happened to Birmingham Midshires?
The mortgage business is still lending through brokers. The savings side closed during 2025 and the consumer site is now an information page, which is why you cannot open an account.
Does BM Solutions lend to limited companies?
Yes, but only to companies set up purely to hold property, not trading businesses. The rent needs to cover 125% rather than 145%, which is often why landlords use this route.
Does BM Solutions do HMO mortgages?
Only in a limited way. Up to five unrelated tenants under a single tenancy agreement. Not separate individual tenancies, bedsits or hostel-type accommodation.
Will BM Solutions accept bad credit?
No, it is not a bad credit lender. There is no published minimum credit score, but applications are credit-scored alongside manual underwriting, and a clean recent history is expected. It is worth checking your credit file before you apply. If you have missed payments, defaults or a CCJ, there are lenders better suited to you and we can point you to them.
Does BM Solutions lend to first-time landlords?
Yes, but you must already own a residential property in the UK. Complete first-time buyers are not accepted. If you have limited experience as a landlord, the case goes to an underwriter rather than being declined outright.
How long does BM Solutions take?
If you are switching to a new deal with BM, usually the same day. If you are buying or remortgaging, half of our last 118 applications had their offer within eight days and around eight in ten within a month.
What are the disadvantages of BM Solutions?
Its best rates are restricted by EPC rating, it is often beaten on price by fee-free products elsewhere, and you cannot deal with it directly.
Did BM Solutions ever do residential mortgages?
The Birmingham Midshires brand has been attached to residential lending historically. Today BM Solutions lends on buy-to-let and let-to-buy only.
How YesCanDo Money can help with your BM Solutions mortgage
You cannot go to BM Solutions yourself, so you need a broker either way. The question is only which one.
We are whole-of-market, so we compare BM against every other lender rather than starting with it. Around one in five of our BM-related cases ends up somewhere else, and we will tell you when that is you. We look at total cost across the term rather than the headline rate, because product fees regularly change which deal is actually cheapest.
We support you through to completion. None of it costs you a broker fee, because we are paid by the lender.
If your rate is ending or you are looking at a purchase, we will tell you where you land with BM and where you land everywhere else.
