They often encounter instances of high street lenders refusing to offer funding in what’s deemed to be more unusual cases, such as on mixed-use properties, agricultural buildings or land for development, as they may only fit outside the lender’s pre-defined criteria.

However, specialist lenders such as Together can take a commonsense view on more complex cases and will consider lending in a surprising range of non-standard scenarios, including more unusual property types; anything from hotels to golf courses and amusement parks.

As a specialist lender, we will look at many more ‘non-standard’ securities on a case-by-case basis, as the following three examples demonstrate.

HMOs

We provided a £134,925, 12-month bridging loan to a pair of business partners – secured against a three-bedroom HMO in the Midlands – after a broker approached us with a complicated case.

The property was worth £185,000 and the partners needed the finance quickly to enable them to buy another property at auction in Birmingham. We provided the funds needed at 62.7% LTV, allowing the investors to widen their buy-to-let portfolio.

Petrol stations

There are only a select few lenders with an appetite for petrol station finance, as they are often considered specialised commercial property assets, so knowing which lender to approach can be critical. In one case, we lent £4.34m to a company to buy four petrol stations. The customer had been let down by their previous lender who, because of the complicated nature of the deal, could not release the funds in time. After carefully reviewing the case, we were able to complete the transaction in three days.

Land

In one such case, a developer approached us for funding of £5m to secure part of a large redevelopment site in Manchester city centre. The regeneration of the area was well-publicised, so land was in high demand and the buyer needed to complete quickly. Despite the complexity of the deal, the funds were provided in just 21 days and the client was able to purchase the land and move forward with the development, creating additional accommodation for a buoyant rental market.

Given how many customers could fall outside the tighter mainstream criteria, it’s easy to see why alternative forms of finance are on the rise and our growth at Together would bear this out.

Last month, we announced record lending volumes to 31^st December 2017, with our loan book reaching £2.55bn. Much of this success has been built on commercial lending in complex situations and we expect to see growth in this area as we continue to move forward.