A social housing landlord avoids a 5% penalty as Funding 365 and Aureum Finance deliver under genuine time pressure
A landlord facing a 5% default fee from their existing lender has been rescued after Funding 365 completed a £930,000 residential bridging loan in just 48 hours from enquiry to completion.
Introduced by Aureum Finance, the loan is secured at 65% loan-to-value against a bungalow in outer London converted for social housing use. With a strong tenant in place, the borrower plans to exit on to a specialist buy-to-let mortgage once the bridge term concludes.
Joe Guilfoyle, head of specialist finance at Aureum Finance, said the case exposed the gap between lenders who market speed and those who actually deliver it.
"My client needed to refinance within 48 hours and there was no room for delay,” he said. "Funding 365 understood the deadline from the outset, made clear decisions early and kept everyone moving. Plenty of lenders talk about speed, but very few deliver it when it genuinely matters. This was one of those times."
The case also illustrates the particular complexity of social housing conversions as security. Properties of this type can present challenges for mainstream lenders around valuation and tenancy structure, making specialist bridging lenders the natural choice for time-critical cases where the exit strategy is clearly defined. Here, the combination of an established tenancy and a credible route on to a specialist buy-to-let product gave Funding 365 the confidence to act decisively.
Funding 365 attributed the turnaround to its single-underwriter model, in which one person manages each loan from enquiry through to redemption, removing the departmental handoffs that can slow execution precisely when speed matters most. Brokers navigating similar cases will find that understanding how bridging lenders structure their underwriting processes can make the difference between a deal that completes and one that doesn't. The legal team at Fieldfisher – John Smith, John Coady and Jess Hindle – completed their portion of the work within 24 hours of receiving the legal undertaking.
Landlords operating in the specialist buy-to-let and social housing sector will recognise the value in having a broker who can identify the right lender quickly and a lender structured to respond in kind.
Katie Spitz (pictured top), deputy head of underwriting at Funding 365, said: "This case really highlights what can be achieved through close collaboration between broker, lender, valuer and lawyer. At Funding 365, one underwriter manages each stage of a loan from enquiry to redemption, which puts us in a particularly strong position to deliver to tight deadlines. Credit to Joe, and to John Smith, John Coady and Jess Hindle at Fieldfisher who turned this around in just 24 hours from receiving the legal undertaking."
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