Bluestone Mortgages enhances credit and tiering criteria to broader access to homeownership

01 May 2025

Bluestone Mortgages today announces a series of significant updates to its credit policy and tiering criteria across its residential product range. These changes are designed to enhance accessibility, making it easier for more customers to qualify for a mortgage. This move underscores Bluestone's ongoing commitment to refining its offerings and processes, ensuring brokers and their clients benefit from greater support.

Bluestone has expanded its acceptable CCJs criteria, making it more likely for customers to qualify for a better mortgage rate. For its AA credit tier, customers are now allowed up to 2 CCJs in the past 36 months. Similarly, for its A tier, customers are allowed up to 3 CCJs in the same timeframe.

The lender has also raised its threshold for defaults and CCJs, now discounting those under £500 (a £200 increase on its previous limit), offering broader eligibility for customers. In addition to disregarding telecoms defaults and CCJs, Bluestone will now exclude utility bill defaults and CCJs from consideration.

As part of Bluestone’s criteria changes, it has further increased its flexibility for customers who have recently been discharged from bankruptcy on AA, A and BBB credit tiers. For its AA tier, Bluestone will now accept customers who have been discharged for over two years, and over one year for its A and BBB products.

Steve Griffiths, Retail Mortgages Commercial Director at Shawbrook, comments:

“It's crucial that lenders adapt to the diverse needs of borrowers. These changes reflect Bluestone’s understanding of the challenges many customers face in accessing mortgages. By offering greater flexibility with CCJs, defaults, and bankruptcy history, we’re ensuring that more people have the opportunity to secure a mortgage, even if their financial past doesn’t fit the traditional mould. Our aim is to make homeownership more attainable in a modern world where credit histories are far from straightforward.”