Case Studies

2009 has been a year where lenders have been out of the market, unsure of their positioning or just short of money. The result has been that credit has been difficult to access and the terms and conditions have been significantly different from the headline days of 2007; those lenders with readily available funds have tightened policy and taken advantage of their stronger position to increase margin and fees.

It is all the more important to be confident that your transaction can be funded to the right level and in the timescale that you need. We are purposefully displaying recent cases so that you can see what terms are today rather than time past and you will note the month in which each transaction was sanctioned by the lender.

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• A very quick remortgage! (November 2009)

  06/01/2010

  The clients required a fast remortgage in order to raise some capital for the deposit to purchase another property. They were in competition with someone else and so had to move quickly.
• Money saving remortgage (November 2009)

  06/01/2010

  Our clients had a mortgage which had moved onto the lenders standard variable rate which was at the time, 4.94%.  Having been on a fixed rate previously at 5.89% they were feeling rather pleased and better off! 

  They were however, concerned that interest rates would start to climb again in the future, and were keen to protect themselves for the next couple of years, against interest rate rises and therefore wanted to take another fixed rate. 

• Expat remortgaging their UK residence (October 2009)

  06/01/2010

  Our client was British but had moved to New Zealand on a work sabbatical and was renting out his home in the UK.  He wanted to raise some capital from this property to give him a deposit to purchase a home in New Zealand, but his existing lenders had declined to lend him any further funds as he was a expat. 

• Purchase of a property with a commercial element (November 2009)

  06/01/2010

  Our clients were hoping to acquire a house with a fairly sizeable piece of land attached to it.  Part of this land was used as a ongoing Cattery business. 

  They had struggled to obtain funding as the Cattery element to the property was pushing the house into commercial territory. 
• Large residential mortgage for self-employed property investor. (September 2009)

  06/01/2010

  An existing client approached us to refinance his own home in order to release funds for further property investment. Property was valued at c£3m and customer required c£2m to clear current mortgage with Northern Rock of £1.4m and release deposit funds for several Buy to Let purchases.
   
  The issue here was that client’s income was from a large residential investment portfolio and income was not easily verifiable. The size of the loan was also a problem for most lenders.
• UK home owner living abroad requiring consent to let mortgage (December 2010)

  10/12/2010

  An ex-pat client living in Hong Kong is renting out their main UK residence but plans to live in it at a future date. We were able to obtain a residential mortgage with immediate consent to let with a high street bank, on a deal which was significantly more attractive than the buy to let alternative.
   

• Residential Bridging Loan (March 2011)

  16/03/2011

  The client was purchasing a house that was being used as a dental surgery. There was no kitchen/bathroom other than very basic facilities and the property did not have the relevant change of use back to residential from the Council. This property was therefore not mortgageable on a residential basis. The bridging loan was taken for three months to allow the borrower to install a full kitchen and bathroom and obtain the relevant permissions from the local authority before remortgaging to a high street residential mortgage.
   

• Freehold block of flats above commercial premises

  11/04/2011

  An experienced landlord purchased a freehold consisting of a ground floor shop with four flats above. He sold the shop on a long lease and wanted funding on the remaining freehold flats to raise finance for further property investment.
   

• Trading limited company purchase (July 2011)

  06/07/2011

  Client looking to use his trading limited company to purchase his own home so that he can buy a new main residence. Funding for trading limited companies is restricted to the clearing banks or specialist commercial lenders. As the client wanted a straightforward transaction without having to move his banking, we discussed the idea of a short-term loan from a commercial lender. The client was also in a position to make significant payments of capital with a view to clearing the loan at the end of the third year.

• 75% LTV for new build houses (July 2011)

  22/07/2011

  Experienced developer and property investor built two new houses using development finance from his bank. Once built, the client wanted to keep the properties, let them out and arrange long term finance on the properties to clear the development finance and raise funds for further property investment.