The Six Month Mortgage Rule
The 'Six Month Rule' refers to a general policy where high street lenders will not grant a mortgage on a property that the vendor has owned for less than 6 months.
The Council of Mortgage Lenders (CML), now integrated into UK Finance, historically maintained a guideline that made it very difficult to secure a mortgage on a property if the seller had owned it for less than six months. This is commonly referred to as the 'Six Month Rule'.
It was introduced to prevent fraudulent back-to-back flipping and artificial inflation of property prices. While it is not a legal law, the vast majority of mainstream high street lenders adhere to it tightly.
Day One Refinance
If you are using the BRRR strategy and want to refinance a property within weeks of finishing the refurbishment, you will usually have to bypass high street banks and use specialist bridging/buy-to-let lenders who offer 'Day One Refinance' products, which ignore the 6-month rule entirely.