Legal & General has introduced an additional buy-to-let module in its SmartrFit platform, which combines lender criteria search functionality with an in-built affordability calculator to help advisers find suitable lenders for their buy-to-let clients efficiently and accurately.

The system has launched with 17 participating lenders, covering around 92% of Legal & General’s buy-to-let lending, with more lenders expected to follow shortly.

It is expected that the platform will help to make it easier for advisers to process buy-to-let cases, which typically involve greater complexities than residential cases; welcome news for estate agents.

Key participating lenders include high street banks – Barclays, Santander, NatWest, Virgin Money, TSB and Bank of Ireland – along with a range of sector specialists and building societies.

They include BM Solutions, The Mortgage Works, Accord Mortgages, Leeds Building Society, Skipton Building Society, Coventry Building Society, Fleet Mortgages, Platform, Kent Reliance, Precise Mortgages, and Bath Building Society.

Clare Beardmore, head of broker relationships and propositions at Legal & General Mortgage Club, said: “This is an important step in the journey for our free to use SmartrFit platform. With the launch of our buy-to-let module, we’re putting an entirely new function in the hands of advisers and helping them to deploy the same great tech but for more of their clients.

“Of course, buy-to-let cases can often times be even trickier to place that residential business, so this will be of particular use to both specialist and generalist broker firms.

“We’re continuing to focus on creating digital tools that help the broker community and this is just another example of how technology brings efficiencies to advice firms and puts time back in the hands of staff.

“The development of these tools is heavily influenced by feedback from our users, so while we would certainly urge those that have not yet tried the system to explore just how it can help support business, we also hope those that do use it, continue to do so and let us know how we can continue to make it even better.”