Frequently Asked Questions

A mortgage is built for the long haul, and priced and assessed that way. A bridging loan is short-term, costs a little more, and is assessed mainly on your exit plan: how and when you'll pay it back, rather than long-term affordability.

No. We arrange unregulated bridging finance for business and investment purposes only, and our loans can't be secured against your main residence. That's a deliberate choice rather than a shortcut: it lets us move faster and lend more flexibly, and we hold ourselves to the same standard of disclosure on rates, fees and terms regardless.

Usually one of three things: selling the property, refinancing onto a buy-to-let mortgage once it's ready to let out, or a sale that's already in progress. We'll ask about this early on, since it affects your rate more than anything else.

The most common uses are auction purchases with a tight completion deadline, funding a refurbishment on a property a mortgage lender won't touch until the work's done, covering a broken chain, and refinancing a completed development. In short: any situation where speed or flexibility matters more than the lowest possible rate.

Our terms run from 1 to 12 months, with most cases falling somewhere between 3 and 9 months depending on the exit strategy. We'll always agree a term that realistically matches your plan, with a bit of buffer built in rather than the bare minimum.

Less than you'd need for a mortgage. Since the loan is secured against the property and priced for the short term, past credit issues or being self-employed rarely rule you out on their own.

Mostly residential investment property, including buy-to-let, HMOs, and property in need of refurbishment. We also consider semi-commercial and commercial property, and land with planning permission, on a case-by-case basis.

Yes. A large share of our lending goes to limited companies and SPVs set up to hold investment property, alongside individual landlords and investors borrowing in their own name.

Yes. There's no requirement to have completed previous deals, though a clear, well-evidenced exit strategy matters more if you don't yet have a track record to point to. We're happy to talk through your first project in as much detail as you need.

You need to be at least 18 to apply, and there's no fixed upper age limit, since the loan is assessed on the property and exit strategy rather than long-term personal circumstances the way a mortgage might be.

Loans range from £10,000 up to £1,000,000, at a maximum of 75% loan-to-value against the property's open market value. The exact amount available depends on the property, your exit strategy, and how the loan is secured.

A first charge loan sits ahead of any other lending on the property, used when there's no existing mortgage or when the bridge repays it. A second charge loan sits behind an existing first charge mortgage, meaning our security ranks after the existing lender's if the property ever needs to be sold. Second charge lending is more complex to arrange and is typically offered at a lower maximum LTV.

Typically 5 to 10 days from application, sometimes faster for straightforward cases or repeat borrowers, since we run valuation and legal work in parallel rather than one stage waiting for the next.

12 months is our maximum standard term. Development exit finance can occasionally run a little longer where a phased sale or letting-up period genuinely needs it, assessed on a case-by-case basis.

In some cases, yes, this is known as a further advance. It depends on the available equity in the property and your circumstances at the time, and would be treated as a fresh assessment rather than an automatic top-up.

Usually an arrangement fee (around 2% of the loan), a valuation fee, legal fees for both sides, and sometimes an exit fee too. We'll set all of this out in writing upfront, alongside your rate, so there are no surprises.

Yes, and there's a genuine reward for it. Repaying ahead of schedule doesn't just save you interest for the unused time, we also cut a further 5% off the overall cost for every month you come in early.

Take a £25,000 loan over 6 months with £4,500 in retained interest as an example. Finish 2 months ahead of schedule, and that 5%-per-month discount knocks 10% off the total, a £450 saving, bringing your interest down from £4,500 to £4,050.

Get in touch as early as possible, ideally weeks before your term ends rather than after. Depending on your situation, options can include a short extension, refinancing onto a new bridge, or adjusting the exit plan. What we want to avoid is silence: cases that stall are usually ones where we found out too late that something had changed.

Yes. The rate agreed at the outset is fixed for the full term of the loan, so there are no surprise increases partway through, regardless of what happens in the wider market.

On staged drawdowns, such as larger refurbishment or development exit cases, you only pay interest on funds actually drawn, not the full facility. On a single lump-sum bridge, the whole amount is normally advanced at completion, so this mainly applies to phased or staged loans.