Buy-to-let mortgages suffered a sharp rise in arrears during the first quarter of 2009 – particularly driven by the deterioration within the securitisation vehicle of Bradford & Bingley, the nationalised bank, writes Jane Croft.

Moody’s, the rating agency, examined the performance of all the leading UK buy-to-let securitisations and found that accounts that are 90 days or more in arrears have risen to 3.55 per cent in the first quarter of 2009 compared with 0.92 per cent in the same period last year.