The Intermediary – October 2026 - Flipbook - Page 44
BRIDGING
Opinion
Anatomy of a
ridging finance
completed in an
average of 43 days
across 2025, according
to Bridging Trends,
which increased to 46
days by Q2 of 2026.
A decade earlier, the comparable
average was around 34 days. Whatever
the sector has been doing to progress
cases faster, while still conducting
appropriate diligence around them,
the average completion time does not
reflect it.
Where bridging completions are
possible within days, and most lenders
will have a case study or two showing
this, the average suggests they’re a
rarity rather than a norm. It’s likely
that this is a structural problem rather
than a maer of effort, as there are
some parts of the bridging loan process
that can obviously cause delays.
An average does not highlight one
slow thing, but a chain of stages, each
running on its own clock, and they
behave very differently from one
another. Some cannot be compressed.
Some can. Is it possible to be quick
by design?
B
Enquiry to terms
This is the stage the market makes
a lot of headline claims about, yet it
usually has the least impact on time
to completion. A decision can be
reached in hours where the enquiry
arrives complete.
For some lenders, business
development managers (BDMs) can
issue indicative terms based on a
lending policy, but they could change
when the deal reaches a formal term
stage. Other lenders can issue creditbacked terms from the outset.
However terms are issued, it is
rare that this process takes longer
than a day, and it is frequently done
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The Intermediary | October 2026
within hours. The lag here can be any
potential negotiation of terms, and
a borrower returning a signed copy
where needed.
Underwriting
When terms are agreed, a lender’s full
underwriting process begins. This is
where the case is looked at in detail
rather than read solely commercially:
the borrower is verified for ‘know
your customer’ (KYC) and anti-money
laundering (AML), the exit is assessed
for how realistic it is.
The assets involved are also
examined: is there any planning
permission, pending or historical
for any changes already made; are
there required licences in place, such
as for houses in multiple occupation
(HMOs); is the use class of commercial
property accurate, etcetera.
Alongside this, the sections below
also relate to the underwriting
process: the valuation report is
reviewed once it is ready, the legal
process can need input from the
lender, and somebody signs the
case off.
Lile of this can be removed
outright. Checks must be done
properly. However, while there’s no set
timeline, it can be influenced by how
the work is organised.
Cases where underwriting
progresses while the valuation and
legal processes are underway can be
faster than those with more of a staged
process, where valuation is a first step,
and underwriting doesn’t properly
begin until the report is available.
Brokers and borrowers can
have influence here, too. Where
information is requested as a
single list, providing it quickly and
comprehensively can help parts
of the underwriting process move
more smoothly.
DANIEL RODNEY
is director at Lakeshield
Valuation
Three separate clocks sit inside
the manual valuation process:
instruction and booking, inspection,
and report turnaround. Only one of
them involves a surveyor looking at
a building.
Instruction and booking is
administrative, although it depends
on panel capacity. At certain times
of year, such as the busy period in
December, capacity can lead to lower
availability.
The inspection itself depends on
the availability of whoever holds the
keys, which is outside of both lender
and valuer control. The report itself
is generally the shortest of the three,
although they are comprehensive
documents and the lender also needs
to review them.
This is where the first genuinely
irreducible element sits. If a physical
inspection is required, somebody
must aend the property, and no
process design reduces that to zero.
What is not fixed is whether the
inspection is required at all.
Desktop assessments reduce the
timeline, and automated valuation
models remove the booking clock
