A bank grants mortgages every day. What it struggles with is the file that does not fit its template: income in another currency, payslips from a foreign employer, no local credit history, a non-resident buyer, or a company standing in as the owner. None of that makes the transaction unworkable. What makes it unworkable is presenting it to the bank as a standard case and letting the bank discover the differences itself.
The same principle applies one step up, when the asset is held for investment rather than lived in: the lender is not analysing the buyer so much as the asset and what it produces, who pays the rent, under what lease, and what happens when that lease ends. We prepare and place both kinds of case, translating the real situation into the terms an analyst can approve.
Typical situations
- Residential mortgages for international and non-resident buyers, including second homes
- Mortgage support for clients with foreign income, no local credit history, or purchase through a company
- Acquisition finance for investment property, individually or in portfolio
- Refinancing of an existing property or portfolio on better terms
- Liquidity against an unencumbered asset, without selling it
- Repositioning: buy, refurbish and refinance afterwards
- Single-tenant assets and long-term leases
What decides the number, for a mortgage
The lender does not look only at the property. It looks at whether the income can be documented in a form it can file, whether the currency of the income matches the currency of the debt, who is named as owner, and what happens to the security if that owner is a foreign company. The loan-to-value granted to a non-resident is usually lower than the one granted to a resident, and that is planned for from the start rather than discovered in the offer.
International documentation runs on its own calendar: powers of attorney, apostilles and sworn translations are not resolved in two days, and they are the most common reason a completion date slips.
What the lender reads in the lease, for an income-producing asset
The tenant's covenant matters before the square metres do. The contractual break clause against the full lease term, which rarely coincide. The exit windows, the rent-free periods and who carries which costs. And the ratio between net rent and debt service, which is the number that actually decides the amount.
A well-let asset with a poorly drafted lease is financed worse than an ordinary asset with a clean one. That difference is worth seeing before the file is presented, not after.
Where debt is not the full answer
Some transactions are better solved with equity or co-investment alongside debt. Where that is the case, we look at it through our Equity & Capital Partners route.