Refresh Living used this capital to refinance its existing development facility and reduce overall finance costs for a £8.5m BTR scheme in Weston-Super-Mare.

This facility, structured at 75% LTV and over a five-year term, also allowed Refresh Living to release equity from the scheme before it reached practical completion and was fully let.

The 40-apartment scheme was being built across three blocks, with one already completed and fully let at the time refinancing was sought.

Julian King, managing director at BlueHorizon, introduced the funding when acting on behalf of Refresh Living.

Following detailed due diligence, UTB’s structured property finance team created a bespoke dual-facility solution.

This comprised a serviced five-year residential investment loan secured against the completed and income-producing block, alongside a three-month developer exit bridge with rolled interest secured against the remaining two blocks.

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Once works were completed, and the apartments let, the exit bridge was designed to roll into an additional residential investment loan.

This approach enabled the borrower to take profit from the scheme, reduce funding costs, and transition from development to long-term investment finance.

“As an agile specialist lender backed by a strong retail deposits business, UTB has the capacity to deliver substantial, competitive funding packages, combined with a genuinely relationship-led approach,” said Neil O’Shea, business development director of structured property finance at UTB (pictured above).

“The structured property finance team is particularly well suited to more complex, ‘outside the box’ transactions like this, where part-complete assets, phased lettings and bespoke exit strategies are required.

“By working closely with Julian King and the Refresh Living team, we were able to reduce the borrower’s finance costs, release equity and provide a clear route from development to long-term investment, on terms other lenders found difficult to match.”