Speed, pragmatism and a long-term exit – inside a seven-day commercial bridge
Roma Finance has delivered a complex commercial bridging facility in seven days, demonstrating the growing appetite for fast, relationship-led lending in the commercial property sector.
The Manchester-based specialist lender completed a £1.1m commercial bridging loan for Hatters Square Limited, a property holding company co-owned by Michael Street, an experienced property professional and broker, and Josh Berry, a property developer who has delivered more than £4 million worth of developments over the past decade. The facility was arranged through Roma's FLOW commercial bridging proposition at 55% loan-to-value (LTV) against a £2m market value, over a six-month term.
The security is a commercial premises on Market Street in Denton, acquired by Hatters Square Limited in 2024, which is currently occupied by tenants operating a food and drinks hall. The funding allowed the borrowers to repay their existing lender while building out the trading history needed to pursue longer-term financing.
A pathway beyond the bridge
What distinguished the deal was not just its speed, but the structure of the exit. Roma's commercial mortgage team ran a parallel assessment of the property's long-term funding potential at the same time as delivering the bridge, giving the borrowers a clear route towards refinancing onto a term product with the same lender, subject to the property meeting the relevant criteria.
Michael Allison (pictured top), commercial director at Roma Finance, said the deal reflected the evolution of Roma's commercial lending offer. "We have a team with significant experience across commercial property finance, and that allows us to look beyond the immediate funding requirement and understand what the customer is ultimately trying to achieve," he said.
"With commercial bridging, development finance and now our commercial mortgages sitting under the same umbrella, we're in a much stronger position to support customers at different stages of their property journey. That's something we're really excited about."The completion follows Roma Finance's move into longer-term commercial lending earlier this year. The lender launched a commercial mortgage range after securing a forward-flow funding agreement with J.P. Morgan, which unlocked products of up to £2m at lending of up to 70% LTV, with fixed-rate and longer-term options available. The Hatters Square deal marks the first publicly disclosed completion that demonstrates the end-to-end proposition in practice – a short-term bridge delivered with a commercial mortgage assessment running alongside it.
Speed and clarity from day one
Street said the seven-day turnaround was critical to the transaction. "This transaction came together exactly as we had hoped; with speed, clarity, and a lender who understood the opportunity from day one," he said.
"Roma was able to take a pragmatic approach, understand our respective experiences and delivered the funding in just seven days. That speed made a real difference, and the flexibility of the facility gives us the time we need to build the financial trading data and move towards longer-term funding plans."
The case illustrates a trend emerging across the specialist finance market, where borrowers increasingly favour lenders capable of supporting them across multiple stages of a project rather than engaging a series of separate providers. For brokers placing commercial clients, the availability of a clear bridge-to-mortgage pathway with a single lender simplifies the funding process and reduces transition risk.
Roma's commercial mortgages are available across England, Scotland and Wales, with the lender targeting property investors, trading businesses and OpCo-PropCo structures. Allison said the Hatters Square completion was an example of the kind of relationship-led lending he expected to become a recurring feature of Roma's commercial book.
"For us, that's what good relationship-led lending should look like," he said.
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