Bridging Loan Case Studies Somerset

The borrower picked up a vacant three-bed terrace at a regional Somerset auction with a 28-day completion deadline. The property was tenantable shell only: no kitchen, dated bathroom, full strip-out required. The legal pack also flagged a rear extension built around 2008 with no planning history on the council file. Standard mortgage lenders would not touch it.

We had the auction pack on our desk by 9am the next morning. Indicative terms came back from MT Finance inside 24 hours alongside one other panel option. The borrower signed the better of the two and we packaged the file the same week. Valuation landed inside 5 working days and legals ran in parallel using title insurance to close out the planning history gap. Completion landed 13 working days after the hammer fell, with 15 days of the auction clock still on it.

A Hinkley Point C workforce-let investor bought a two-bed terrace in Bridgwater TA6 at a regional auction with the 28-day clock running. The property had no central heating, an asbestos artex ceiling, and a kitchen-diner that needed gutting back to bare brick. Standard mortgage lenders would not lend on it as it stood.

We pitched the case to three panel lenders and settled on a 9-month bridge at 72% LTV against open-market value, with the works budget released in two tranches. Hope Capital priced the case sharpest given the speed required. Funds drew down at 17 working days from auction; the borrower had 11 days of the 28-day clock remaining. Works ran 8 weeks at a £18,500 budget. The property let to a Hinkley contractor within three weeks of works completion.

A small portfolio investor bought a three-bed semi in Yeovil BA20 at regional auction with the strategy of cosmetic refurbishment and quick onward sale. The Leonardo Helicopters workforce in Yeovil drives steady demand on this stock at this price point. The property was sound structurally but the decoration, kitchen and bathroom dated to the late 1990s.

We packaged the bridge to a panel lender within 48 hours of the auction. The lender priced at 70% LTV against current value, 6-month term, with rolled interest. Completion landed 14 working days from hammer fall, comfortably inside the 28-day window. The refurbishment ran 7 weeks at a £14,000 budget covering kitchen, bathroom, redecoration and garden tidy-up.

A landlord bought a Georgian three-bed terrace in BA1 with the intent to refurbish to a high-end professional-let standard, targeting University of Bath staff and Bath-based finance and tech professionals. The Bath stone facade required careful conservation, the internal layout needed reconfiguration to open up the ground floor, and the EPC rating needed lifting from a D to a C.

We packaged the case to Roma Finance at 70% LTV against the purchase price plus a works budget released in three tranches. The 9-month term gave realistic headroom for the conservation work and EPC uplift. The refurbishment ran 16 weeks at a £58,000 budget, including period-appropriate sash window restoration and a heritage-spec internal cornicing repair.

A landlord bought a three-bed period stone cottage in Frome BA11 with the intent to refurbish and add to the Somerset BTL portfolio. The survey flagged a failed lintel over the front bay and an internal load-bearing wall that needed removing to create a kitchen-diner space. The works pushed the case from light to medium-heavy refurbishment, which narrowed the lender panel.

We pitched the case to United Trust Bank and one other heavy-refurb specialist. UTB priced at 65% LTV against open-market value with the works budget released in four stage payments against quantity-surveyor sign-off. The 12-month term accommodated the structural work and the period-appropriate stone repair. Works ran 22 weeks at a £42,000 budget, including the lintel replacement, the structural opening, and a full re-roof in matching natural Welsh slate.

A retired couple wanted to complete on a Glastonbury cottage before their larger existing Wells home reached the market. The Glastonbury vendor had a hard exchange deadline of 4 weeks. The couple stood to lose the onward purchase if they could not exchange in time. The bridge was regulated because the security was their existing owner-occupied Wells home.

We introduced them to one of our FCA-authorised partners who carried out the regulated activity. The packaging team handled the case file and Hope Capital quoted indicative terms inside 24 hours at the regulated rate band. Funds completed in 13 working days against the existing Wells home, with the Glastonbury onward purchase exchanging on time.

A North Somerset couple were partway through a Clevedon to Portishead downsizer move when their original buyer pulled out two weeks before exchange. A replacement buyer was found inside ten days but needed time to clear their own mortgage offer and conveyancing. The Portishead vendor would not extend further. The couple needed bridging to complete the onward Portishead purchase before the Clevedon sale could close.

Regulated bridging case introduced to our FCA-authorised partner. The bridge took first charge against the existing Clevedon home, leaving the Portishead onward purchase funded by sale proceeds and the bridge combined. The partner placed the case with a regulated panel lender at 0.70% per month, 65% LTV, 6-month term. Funds drew down 14 working days from enquiry.

A regional developer reached practical completion on a twelve-apartment scheme in Taunton TA1, an in-town conversion of a former office building. The development facility ran at expensive dev rates and was 45 days from expiry. Four of the twelve units had buyers under offer subject to contract but had not exchanged. Eight units were on the market with no offers yet at month 9 of the build.

We refinanced the developer off the dev facility onto a development-exit bridge at materially lower monthly cost. Octopus Real Estate priced at 65% LTV against gross development value, term 12 months, with the lender accepting individual unit sales and a portfolio BTL refinance on retained units as the redemption mechanism. The packaging covered the build cost reconciliation, the marketing strategy, and individual unit valuations against comparable evidence across the TA1 postcode.

A landlord owned a Bath BA2 mixed-use building: ground-floor retail unit with two two-bed flats over, just outside the UNESCO World Heritage core but within a Bath conservation area. The commercial tenant's lease was 5 months from expiry. The landlord wanted breathing room to re-gear the lease at a higher rent, repair the listed shopfront, and stabilise the income before refinancing onto a long-term commercial term loan at a much better valuation.

We arranged a 12-month bridge with Octopus Real Estate at 65% LTV against the building. The lender took comfort from the residential income covering interest on a serviced basis, with the commercial vacancy priced in. We packaged the lease re-gear plan as part of the exit story. Seven months in, the commercial tenant signed a new 10-year lease at a 28% higher rent. The shopfront repair completed under listed building consent at month 5.

A Bath BA1 family had built £400,000 of equity in their owner-occupied home through capital growth and mortgage paydown. They wanted to release £165,000 to fund the deposit on a second property investment without disturbing the favourable existing first-charge fixed-rate mortgage, which had four years to run at a sub-2% rate. A remortgage to release equity would have cost them the existing low rate and triggered an early repayment charge.

Because the security was their owner-occupied home, the case ran through our FCA-authorised partner under the regulated regime. The second-charge bridge sat behind the first-charge lender at 60% combined LTV. Together priced the case at 1.05% per month, 9-month term, with rolled interest. The first-charge lender granted consent inside 4 weeks. Funds drew down at 6 weeks from enquiry.