Property Finance experts you can trust.
We connect lenders and borrowers securely, ensuring transparency and simplifying the lending process.
Property Finance
Advice in Property Finance
The property finance market has a vast range of lenders and products available, many of whom have stringent and robust processes that need careful consideration and a hands-on approach. We work with a significant number of lenders in the market, all of whom work differently – whether this is loan to value benchmarks or additional security measures. Our role in this process is to help you to understand any potential risk associated with property finance and to ensure you have clear and regulated legal advice for your investment property.
What is Property Finance?
Property finance is usually short term (bridging finance) or long term (mortgage), depending on your current situation or planned use of the property. Short term finance is often obtained where you plan to develop or renovate the property – Development Finance – or where for other reasons you are not able to use a traditional bank. Mortgages are used for long term investments, such as Buy-To- Let investments.
In essence, property finance is allowing a lender to take a charge over your property in return for funding. The funding can then be used for various purposes, providing the purpose has been prior agreed with the Lender.
When can I benefit from Property Finance?
Property finance has many uses and benefits for investors. You may be obtaining property finance to:
Property finance is beneficial when you or your business does not have the cash ready available to make that next investment. Property finance therefore makes that next investment more achievable or achievable much sooner, which is often desirable when looking to expand your portfolio quickly. Alternatively, you may be cashing out on your portion of the equity in a property to release equity for a new investment. You may also benefit from property finance by paying off an existing facility to obtain a from more favourable interest rate with a new lender.
When it comes to property finance, it is important you look at all the options available to you before committing. Our property lawyers have a wealth of experience in handling a range of lending products, so they will be able to guide you through which finance solution you choose for your property.
How does property finance work?
As an investor, you may have spent some time looking for the best product for you in the market and our role is to help you secure your opportunity with the chosen lender.
We will be provided with the lending documentation from the chosen lender, at which point we will need to review the loan facility. This process can be straightforward, but there are often hidden complexities.
When you purchase a new investment property with funding from a lender, the lender will need to secure a charge over that property to ensure their funding is protected. As the new investment property is unknown to the lender, they require our legal expertise to ensure the title to the property they are funding is good and marketable.
When you obtain finance against an existing property that you own, you could go through the process of either obtaining additional finance with your existing lender or sourcing finance with a new lender. If you choose to do the latter, again the property will be unknown to the new lender who will need to understand the property from a legal standpoint before they will provide funding.
We must ensure we have advised you on the facility and all lending conditions in full, as well as any elements of risk to both you and the lender before the matter can complete. This gives both you and the lender an opportunity to mitigate risk and negotiate where appropriate before the finance is put in place.
Our Partner Lenders
OUR PARTNETNER LENDERS
Banks we work with
PLS has the infrastructure, technology and scale needed to provide fast, efficient and hands-on legal advice to lenders and developers. We act nationally for many bridging and specialist lenders like Islamic Finance. We are also on many major high street bank panels. Lenders trust us as we have highly secure checking procedures that are integrated with the latest technology from title checks to anti-money laundering.
“Just bought our first home using PLS Solicitors, I highly recommend and will be doing so to all my family and friends! The online portal makes life so much easier being able to upload documents on your phone, track where you are up to and know what will happen next!” Aisha #firsttimebuyer
Featured Case Study
Secured Lending
PLS secures the right result for a major high value development finance case in central London
This case was monumental in that it set the precedent for this Lender in how they approach development finance deals. The previous process in place was outdated in that it was better suited for smaller scale developments with less conditions precedents on the Developer to obtain the necessary construction documentation.
It is common to experience resistance, mostly from the Developer and the professional team, to provide the right construction documentation where required. If not completed in advance of the deal coming to us it can cause delays whilst the documents are drafted, which was demonstrated in this case. However, due to the high-risk nature of development finance it is important we maintain a balance of speed and mitigation of risk for all parties.
As this was a high value development with a professional team consisting of several different legal entities, we had to consider the contractual relationships between all parties involved in the build and adopt a risk averse approach to ensure the Lender had sufficient means to ‘step-in’ if the Developer became insolvent.
In a scenario where the Developer (or Borrower) falls away and is unable to complete the build, the Lender must have a sufficient contractual link to the professional team, so they are able to enforce any outstanding liabilities under construction documentation to ensure the build is finished where the Developer is not able to complete the build themselves.
Our advice differed somewhat form the Quantity Surveyor (QS) which caused a great deal of friction during the transaction. Our advice consisted of a detailed report on the reasons for obtaining a suitable JCT, Appointments and Collateral Warranties for the main contractor and sub-contractors followed by an urgent conference call with the Lender, the Developer and the QS to explain our advice in greater detail.
As a result of our risk averse approach and expertise, we received the “lions share” of this particular Lender’s development finance work due to increased confidence in our ability to ensure the Lender’s and Developer’s security is our primary concern, whilst putting precedents in place to ensure a smoother journey for future Developers.
“It is important for our clients to trust the advice we give them and in this transaction, it proved how critical our expertise was to the success of a case.”
– Kieran de Vares, Associate Director
“PLS is now our trusted advisor for all development finance deals – anything between £1-20million”
Why choose us:
We have a dedicated team of over 150 staff based in our Liverpool, Manchester and London offices and we work with a significant number of lenders in the market.
Let us help you to secure the property finance for your project. By working closely with a vast range of brokers and lenders, we can help you to fund a purchase of a new investment, release equity from your existing property or consolidate any debts.
Testimonials
Customer feedback
See What Our Customers Are Saying
Read on Trustpilot
Read on Trustpilot
Adriana-Gabriela Neagu
Just wanted to say a big thank you to Jacob and his team at PLS Solicitors. They were brilliant from start to finish and made the whole process much easier than I expected. I probably called Jacob more times than he’d have liked with all my questions, but he was always patient, helpful, and happy to explain things. If he couldn’t take my call, he always made sure to call me back, which I really appreciated. What impressed me most was how quickly everything moved. The completion process was incredibly quick, and the transfer of funds was completed much faster than I expected, which made moving day go very smoothly. A great team to deal with and I’d happily recommend them to anyone. Thanks again, Jacob and team!
Evelyn King
Thank you to Kelly Ferguson and her team. Our house sale and purchase has been completed in less than nine weeks. It is over 26 years since we last moved house and things have changed a lot but Kelly has helped us through. We would recommend PLS. Thank you again
Meha Jerin Aziz
We have just successfully exchanged contracts on our new build property with PLS Solicitors and the experience so far has been genuinely impressive. Jemma and the team have been incredibly patient throughout what has been a complex transaction — deadlines were extended multiple times due to various circumstances and at every stage PLS handled everything smoothly without any drama or unnecessary stress. What stood out most was how everything felt coordinated and in one place. We never felt like we were chasing or left in the dark. Every query was answered promptly and professionally and we reached exchange feeling confident and well supported. We are now looking forward to working with Jemma through to completion and will update this review at that point. Based on our experience so far we would not hesitate to recommend PLS Solicitors to anyone purchasing a property.
Barbara Chapman
We are selling and buying with Sean at PLS Solicitors. We have just exchanged on our sale and Sean has been great. I get very anxious and Sean was really calm when I got worried and reassured me, and he will always call us if we asked. Thank you Sean . We would definitely recommend PLS , especially Sean.
Dumitru Antonesei
Very nice and easy to work solicitors firm. I am very thankful to Jacob who patiently and professionally explained the process.
Jodie Routledge
We have had a really positive experience with our solicitors throughout our sale and purchase. They kept us updated, answered our questions, and helped move everything forward clearly and efficiently. Buying and selling at the same time can feel stressful, but they made the process feel much more manageable and we’re really grateful for their support. We were especially pleased to have exchange confirmed and everything clearly explained ahead of completion. Thank you for all your help — we would happily recommend.
Adam Trowhill
We’ve just exchanged on our new build and PLS handled the process professionally. There were moments of anxiety, as with any conveyancing, but the team were helpful when it mattered and ensured everything was completed correctly. Thank you to Nick for getting us through to exchange 🤝
Morgan Robotham
PLS solicitors have been great been very efficient with all the paperwork, have kept myself and others involved up to date with every step. Thank you PLS solicitors and big shout out to Jack.
eric
is anyone experiencing hard to calling / find the handle solicitor with PLS?
Kester Charles Mafiana
Transaction was seamless and the staffs were very responsive and helpful
