Paul C

If anyone has any recommendations for bridging finance to acquire land to develop I would be grateful if you could share details, thank you.

Thanks Torre, that’s helpful. I have a full draft letter from the council headed “Decision Subject to a Section 106 Legal Agreement”, which then goes on to say “The council has considered your application and decided to grant planning permission subject to the conditions and informative (if applicable) listed below AND the successful conclusion of a Section 106 legal Agreement. Perhaps if they issue that letter (which I think they will), that might be sufficient enough for the BS although BuildStore don’t fill me with confidence around what they can achieve. No agreements in place I’m afraid, the vendor is a housing association and they are incredibly inflexible. They have simply said that we will sell you the land at market value, so I am trying to get to a place where that can happen.

Thanks Alan. The purpose of the product the BS offers is to assist with the purchase of the land as well as the build. We can sign the s106 agreement with just an interest in the land, that can happen at exchange, and gives us full planning permission and the security any lender would require to hand over the balance of funds on completion. I don’t see what the issue is with them agreeing to say we will offer you the funds to build what you want, (based on the costings/valuation of the land etc) and full planning permission being granted as part of purchase. At the moment it seems they won’t even entertain our application…

Nope, we are first time buyers and the land is £350k. We have good earnings though and can borrow over £1m on a ‘normal’ mortgage…

Hi all Looking for some much needed help here. I have (subject to signing a s106 agreement) planning permission to build a property in London but Furness BS have turned around and said that they won’t consider our application unless full planning permission is granted (which requires an executed s106 agreement) which we cannot sign as we don’t (yet) have an interest in the land. The s106 agreement is not contentious, car free, exemption from affordable housing contributions, payment of a construction management plan fee and £8k bond. Anyone with any thoughts on another lender who might be able to help us? Thanks in advice.