Commercial Refurbishment
Manchester

An experienced property developer had exchanged on a former mill building in Manchester's Northern Quarter with 28 days to complete. The building had been vacant for three years and required a full refurbishment to convert into office space and apartments. Two previous brokers had attempted to arrange the funding but failed to deliver terms. One had secured a DIP but the lender pulled out at the last minute due to concerns about the building's condition. The developer was at serious risk of losing the deal — and their deposit.

This wasn't a straightforward deal. The building had mixed-use planning consent still subject to conditions. There was an outstanding contaminated land report from the local authority. The vendor was threatening to pull out and forfeit the deposit if completion didn't happen within the contractual deadline. Most lenders wouldn't touch this combination of issues — vacant commercial property, environmental concerns, conditional planning, and a hostile timeline.

We identified a specialist commercial bridging lender from our private fund panel who had direct experience with this type of asset in the Manchester market. Rather than presenting the deal as a problem to be solved, we reframed it as an opportunity — highlighting the developer's track record, the strong rental market in the Northern Quarter, and the significant value uplift post-refurbishment. We commissioned an independent environmental desktop study that addressed the contamination concerns and worked with the developer's solicitor to ensure the planning conditions could be discharged within the loan term. The lender's in-house legal team was instructed in parallel with the valuation to compress the timeline.