Bridging Loan Case Studies Dorset

The borrower picked up a vacant two-bed seafront flat at a regional auction with a 28-day completion deadline. The flat sat above a parade of shops on Weymouth Esplanade with views across the bay. Tenantable shell only: dated kitchen, sticky 1990s bathroom, full strip-out required, plus a former balcony that had been enclosed at some point without a clear planning history. Standard mortgage lenders would not touch it on the title position alone.

We had the auction pack on our desk by 8am the next morning. Indicative terms came back from two panel lenders inside 24 hours. The borrower signed the better of the two and we packaged the file the same week. Title insurance covered the missing planning paper for the former balcony enclosure. Valuation landed inside 5 working days against a £465,000 open-market value and legals ran in parallel. Completion landed 12 working days after the hammer fell, with 16 days of the auction clock still in hand.

An experienced landlord bought a six-bed Edwardian house in BH8 for conversion into a five-let HMO with en-suites, aimed at the Bournemouth University and AECC University College student catchment. The property sat inside a local Article 4 designation which removed permitted-development rights for HMO conversion. Planning consent had been applied for but was not yet granted at the point of purchase. The works also required structural alteration for compliant fire separation between the floors, a stair-core compartment, and an EPC uplift from a D to a C rating.

We packaged the case to a heavy-refurbishment specialist on the panel who accepted the planning-pending status with a conditional release of the works tranche tied to consent being granted. The 12-month bridge funded the purchase at 65% LTV with the works budget released in three stage payments after a quantity surveyor signed off each phase. Planning came through at month 3 and works completed at month 10.

A retired couple in their early 70s wanted to complete on a smaller four-bed detached home on the inner Sandbanks peninsula before their larger existing home further along BH13 finished going through the sale process. The buyers on the existing home were ready in principle, but their own chain had hit a delay further down. The couple stood to lose the onward purchase if they could not exchange within five weeks.

Because the security was their existing owner-occupied home, the bridge was regulated. We introduced them to one of our FCA-authorised partners who carried out the regulated activity. The packaging team handled the case file. With the existing home conservatively valued at £4.1m and the bridge ask at £2.0m, the lender priced at 50% LTV at the lower end of the regulated band. Funds completed in 13 working days against the existing home as security, and the onward purchase exchanged on time.

A regional developer reached practical completion on a ten-unit apartment scheme in BH15 near the Poole Quay, a mix of one and two-bed flats aimed at the local owner-occupier and first-time BTL market. The development facility ran at expensive dev rates and was 45 days from expiry. Four of the ten units had buyers under offer subject to contract but had not exchanged. The other six were on the market with active viewings but no firm offers yet.

We refinanced the developer off the dev facility onto a development-exit bridge at materially lower monthly cost. The case priced at 65% LTV against the gross development value of £3.45m, term 12 months, with the lender accepting individual unit sales as the redemption mechanism. The packaging covered the build cost reconciliation, the marketing strategy, agent reach reports, and individual unit valuations against comparable evidence across BH14 and BH15.

A couple bought a stone barn with curtilage on the northern fringe of Sherborne with full residential planning consent for conversion to a four-bed family dwelling. The barn carried listed-building consent for one external wall feature which had to be retained. The plan was a 9-month structural and finishing programme to take the barn to a fully habitable family home, then refinance onto a standard owner-occupier mortgage at completion.

Rural change-of-use cases need a lender comfortable with the comparable evidence pool around the Blackmore Vale, where rural conversion completions are not weekly events. We pitched the case to two heavy-refurbishment lenders. The accepted offer funded the acquisition at 65% LTV against the open-market value with consent, plus the full £180,000 works budget released in four stage payments tied to QS sign-offs at strip-out, structural completion, first fix and final fit-out.

An investor with two existing holiday-let properties in the New Forest catchment wanted to add a Swanage three-bed Victorian cottage to the portfolio, a short walk from the seafront and the Jurassic Coast path. The cottage needed a 12-week light refurbishment to bring it to a short-let standard: full redecoration, kitchen refresh, bathroom upgrade, soft furnishings and a small terraced garden lift. The investor wanted speed because the seller had two other offers on the table.

We pitched the case to two panel lenders with appetite for coastal holiday-let bridging. The accepted offer funded the purchase at 70% LTV against a £585,000 open-market value, with the £35,000 works budget retained in the facility for stage release. The exit was a specialist holiday-let term mortgage based on the projected short-let income across the high season, against booking comparables from similar Swanage and Studland properties on the major short-let platforms.

A portfolio landlord was offered a two-bed terraced cottage in Lyme Regis at £305,000 directly from probate executors keen for a quick clean sale. The cottage sat a short walk from the Cobb harbour wall with two off-street parking spaces, rare for the town. The desktop valuation pointed to an open-market value of around £415,000, a clear BMV opportunity. The landlord wanted to extract capital day one to redeploy on the next deal rather than tie up his own funds for 6 months waiting on a term refinance.

We packaged the case to a lender on the panel who would lend against the open-market value rather than the purchase price, given a 6-month seasoning period was not required. The bridge funded the full purchase at 70% LTV against OMV, with no deposit input from the borrower. The exit was a BTL refinance against the open-market value at month 6, on the strength of the rural and coastal demand profile and the existing portfolio track record.

A landlord owned a Blandford Forum mixed-use building on the main high street: ground-floor retail unit with three one-bed flats over. The commercial tenant's lease was 5 months from expiry. The landlord wanted breathing room to re-gear the commercial lease at a higher rent in line with rising market evidence, refurbish the common parts and the rear access, and stabilise the income before refinancing onto a long-term commercial mortgage at a much better valuation.

We arranged a 12-month bridge against the building at 65% LTV against a £1.07m open-market value. The lender took comfort from the residential income covering interest on a serviced basis, with the commercial vacancy priced in conservatively for the first 6 months. We packaged the lease re-gear plan, comparable rental evidence and the landlord's track record as part of the exit story. Six months in, the existing commercial tenant signed a new 10-year lease at a 25% higher rent.

A regional developer secured an option to buy a former Portland industrial unit with newly granted planning consent for change of use to eight two-bed apartments. The vendor wanted completion inside 7 weeks. The developer had a development facility lined up but it would not draw down until site preparation, demolitions and pre-commencement planning conditions were discharged. He needed a bridge to acquire the site and fund the pre-development work, then refinance onto the dev facility for the build itself.

Brownfield change-of-use cases on industrial-to-residential are a narrower lender appetite than residential-to-residential bridges, and the lender takes a careful look at the planning consent, the pre-commencement conditions, and the credibility of the dev facility waiting at exit. We packaged the case to one of the specialist development-lending desks on the panel who took comfort from a clean planning approval, a known developer track record on Dorset coastal stock, and an in-principle commitment letter from the dev lender.

A landlord owned a vacant high-street retail unit in Wimborne Minster town centre with a tired two-bed maisonette over. The previous commercial tenant had vacated 4 months earlier and the residential flat had been empty for the last 7 months. The landlord wanted to refurbish both, re-let the commercial at the current market rent and the flat as a standard residential let, and then refinance onto a long-term commercial mortgage at the stabilised income.

We packaged a 9-month bridge at 65% LTV against the open-market value as-is of £365,000, with a £40,000 works budget retained in the facility for staged release. The retail unit got a shopfront refresh, full strip-out of the trading area and a new ceiling and lighting fit. The flat above got a new kitchen, new bathroom, full redecoration and re-carpeting. We helped introduce a local commercial agent to support the re-let strategy.