How do lenders assess income across two or three companies?

It depends almost entirely on your shareholding, and this is one of the questions where lenders differ so much that the choice of lender changes the answer rather than merely the paperwork.

If you own 100% of a company, there are lenders that will take 100% of that income into account. If you own 50% of each of two companies, there are lenders that will take 100% of your 50% share in both – that is, they will count your whole entitlement from each business, without discounting it for the fact that it arrives from more than one place.

Other lenders will not do that. They read a second and a third company as a second and a third job, and apply the treatment they would apply to any second job: a reduced percentage of the income, or in some cases no weight at all beyond the first. The reasoning is about how much reliance to place on income from more than one source, not about dentistry.

The consequence is that two lenders can look at identical accounts and arrive at figures far enough apart to decide whether a purchase happens. Where several companies each contribute a meaningful part of your income, this is the single most important criteria question you face, and it should be settled before an application rather than discovered through a decline.

What makes it workable is that your ownership position is a matter of record. It can be established at the outset from Companies House, which means the right group of lenders can be identified before anybody fills anything in.