London bridging lenders urged to ditch Scottish hang-ups – Dailly

The reason behind the lack of lenders in Scotland is fairly simple. The main bridging finance powers sitting in their offices in London see Scotland akin to a foreign land, outside the M25, with its different legal system and different culture.

The actual fact of the matter is that Scotland’s economy outperforms northern England. Its major cities; Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Inverness can compete with any city in England.

There is this mistaken interpretation that the market is somehow more difficult, when in actual fact it is the land of opportunity as any new entrant will have easy access to market share instead of fighting it out with everyone in London.

Not only that but the legal system in Scotland has dual qualified lawyers that can operate on both sides of the border and construct credit agreements that can accommodate all lending requirements whether in England or Scotland. So the fact is there should be no barriers for a new lender to enter the Scottish bridging market.

Jumbo Bridging is one of the only private lending companies to do any significant commercial lending in Scotland. We would encourage more commercially-minded bridging lenders to open up in Scotland to take advantage of an engaged property community which is looking to do deals and are happy to use bridging finance due to the continued delays in obtaining high street finance. The same reason that people use bridging finance in England.

This month alone we have completed £4.5m in commercial bridging loans in Scotland, this clearly shows a healthy demand for bridging products. I’m sure this will continue to grow over the next 12 to 24 months as bridging finance enters the mainstream market as a loan type of choice for Scotland’s property investor community.