Aspen overcomes obstacles to complete £3.4m bridge
Aspen Bridging has finalised one of its largest deals to date having completed a £3.4m, 73% loan-to-value bridge on five newbuild flats in Central London.
The client, a Chinese national and an experienced property investor, faced losing over £1m in deposits having secured the apartments in 2017 only for the contracts to expire with another lender.
Winston Hashtroodi, a broker at Capricorn Financial picked up the case and sent the deal to Aspen. In line with the lender’s time-based service excellence targets an illustration was provided in 15 minutes and a formal DIP issued in three hours, including confirmation of figures via the existing Savills valuation.
Within a 15 minutes of authorisation, legals were instructed with Shoaib Patel at Fieldfisher and a retype of the valuation was requested, with the lender’s reassignment process removing the need for a further report.
A senior Aspen underwriter was on site the next day to meet the client, visit the security and understand the client’s requirements and business model. Finance was offered at an initial interest rate of 0.59% for an eight month term, with the applicant planning to refinance.
As the original local searches undertaken had expired Aspen accepted indemnity insurance to speed up the timeline to completion.
Also the client was buying a number of the units in individual name and the remainder in a corporate name, so the lender structured the deal via the corporate using a third-party charge on the individual name units.
In addition, before Aspen had received the enquiry, the contracts had been withdrawn and despite positive indications at the last moment the developer refused to reissue, so a quick solution was needed.
Jack Coombs, director at Aspen, immediately called the developers to assure them completion was on track and remind them of their obligations to the borrower. This provided sufficient confidence for the contracts to be reissued and ensured a smooth completion.
Hashtroodi said: “Aspen pulled it out of the bag once again. The underwriters and case managers worked with me, my client and the solicitors to complete on five flats and save my client in excess of £1m.”
The borrower wrote: “I’ve just finished doing a deal with Aspen Bridging. I was very pleased with the whole process from the beginning till the end. The team is very professional, friendly, and they were working hard to make things happen on time. The customer care is absolutely amazing.
“From a commercial point of view it is also very completive in terms of the rate in the market. I definitely will come back again and again.”
