The Intermediary – August 2026 - Flipbook - Page 57
BRIDGING
Opinion
Breaking down
barriers to foreign
national lending
D
espite the best
efforts of successive
Governments to
complicate the
picture – non-dom
reforms, additional
Stamp Duty, a tax environment that
grows less welcoming with each
passing Budget – the UK property
market remains a global destination
for capital.
International investors continue
to acquire UK property because of
structural pillars that have remained
fundamentally intact since the
Victorian era – clear title, enforceable
property rights, an independent legal
system, and a Land Registry that
provides ownership clarity many
jurisdictions cannot match.
The value of property held under
overseas company ownership has
risen from £15.9bn to £125bn over the
past decade – and that covers only
overseas-registered companies. The
true market, once foreign individual
buyers and UK special purpose
vehicles (SPVs) with foreign national
owners are included, is considerably
larger, and consistently underserved
by mainstream finance.
For many high street lenders,
foreign national lending is a problem
to be avoided rather than solved.
CAIS searches only capture UK-based
lending activity – a borrower who has
serviced mortgages and credit facilities
abroad for 20 years will show up as a
blank page.
That blank page can read the same
as a bad one, and when you add the
compliance overhead of international
funds and foreign ownership
structures, the result can be a decline
based on inconvenience rather
than merit.
It’s not just the high street. Some
specialist lenders are constrained
by warehouse lines or institutional
capital that quietly rules out foreign
national borrowers at eligibility
stage. Aspen is different. Being equity
funded means there is no funder
behind us applying a checklist. If the
deal makes sense, we can do it.
For specialist lenders willing to
look beyond the bureau search, the
question shis from ‘what does the
system say?’ to ‘does the evidence
support this loan?’ Geing that
evidence right is where brokers can
make or break a case.
Need to know
Know your client’s structure before
you approach. Is the borrower
purchasing personally, through a
UK company, an overseas-registered
company, or a trust? Each carries
different requirements, and clarity
from the outset saves time.
Don’t leave source of funds to
the last minute. Source of funds
evidencing is a requirement on any
loan, but for foreign nationals the
documentation can take longer to
retrieve and organise – funds may
arrive from overseas accounts, asset
sales, corporate distributions, or trust
structures, each of which needs to be
clearly traced.
Don’t assume foreign national cases
have to be slow. With the right lender
and a well-prepared submission, a
foreign national case can move as
quickly as a domestic one – where
timelines do extend, it is usually down
to lenders without experience in this
space, or documentation gaps on the
submission, not the type of borrower.
Work with a lender that is
structurally set up for this. Funding
structure maers when the borrower
type or source of funds isn’t typical.
Equity-funded lenders are free from
the typical constraints – your foreign
RICHARD COOMBS
is director of operations
at Aspen Bridging
national clients are assessed on the
merits of the deal, not the limitations
of a funding line.
Legal complications
Deals where a company is registered
overseas or the transaction involves
foreign law oen require a foreign
legal opinion – confirming legal
status, capacity to transact, and
that there are no impediments to
the security. Certified ID and proof
of address will similarly need to be
notarised in the borrower’s home
jurisdiction, but both are routine steps
with the right lender.
Remote signing is well-established,
but different jurisdictions have
different requirements for witnessing
and notarisation – starting the process
early ensures it never becomes a
boleneck at exchange.
Foreign trusts and overseasregistered companies introduce
additional considerations around
ownership structure, through to
beneficial owner level, trustee powers,
and whether the structure permits the
transaction – well-trodden territory
for an experienced lender.
Opportunity for brokers
This is not peripheral to what we do
– we have built up genuine expertise
over nearly a decade. Brokers can have
a substantive conversation knowing
that foreign national borrowers will be
assessed on the merits of the deal.
For those who develop fluency in
this space, the opportunity is real and
largely uncrowded. The clients are
there, the properties are there. The
gap is simply finding a lender set up to
serve them. ●
August 2026 | The Intermediary
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