Property type: Healthcare
Healthcare Property Bridging Loans Devon
We arrange bridging finance against healthcare property across Devon and the wider South West healthcare-property market. Loan sizes run £400,000 to £20 million, terms 6 to 24 months, completions in 14 to 28 days. Healthcare bridging is specialist underwriting; pricing sits 0.85 to 1.35% per month depending on operator covenant, regulatory position and the credibility of the exit.
- Decisions in hours
- Completion in days
- £100k to £25m
- Devon specialists
Devon · Devon
Bridge to your next move.
The asset class
What healthcare property looks like in Devon.
Healthcare property covers residential care homes, nursing homes, specialist learning-disability and mental-health units, GP surgeries, dental practices and standalone clinics. Each sub-segment carries its own valuation methodology, regulatory framework and lender appetite. Care homes are CQC-regulated and value tracks operator trading, occupancy and the local fee mix between self-funded and local-authority residents. GP surgeries trade on the lease structure with NHS Property Services or the Devon Integrated Care Board sitting behind. Dental practices split between NHS-contract value and private goodwill, with the building forming part of the underlying security.
Use cases
Bridging use cases for healthcare assets.
Healthcare bridging cases in Devon cluster around four use cases. The first is purchase of a care home or nursing home from a retiring operator, where the buyer is a regional operator group running a roll-up strategy and bridging is used because term commercial debt cannot complete fast enough or because there is a CQC-registration transition that lenders want to see resolved before they will price term debt. The second is purchase of GP surgeries and dental practices coming out of partnership dissolution, where speed is required and the building is bought separately from the trading business. The third is refurbishment-and-re-registration cases where an older care home is bought, brought up to current CQC standards, and the bridge funds both the purchase and the works programme. The fourth is capital-raise against an unencumbered healthcare freehold, typically held by an operator looking to fund the next acquisition. Across all four, lenders care about the operator's CQC record, the trading evidence and the realism of the exit at stabilised operation.
Devon context
Healthcare Property Across the Devon Care Market
Devon carries one of the older demographic profiles in England, with the retirement migration from the South East into Sidmouth, Budleigh Salterton, Exmouth, Paignton and the South Hams underpinning steady demand for residential and nursing care across the county. The Royal Devon University Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust runs the acute hospitals at Exeter and Barnstaple, with the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital at Wonford and the North Devon District Hospital at Barnstaple anchoring the acute health geography. University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust runs Derriford Hospital, the largest hospital in the South West peninsula, serving Plymouth, South Hams and parts of Cornwall. The Devon Integrated Care Board commissions primary-care services across the county, flowing through GP surgeries that range from rural single-handed Dartmoor practices to larger multi-partner urban surgeries in Exeter, Plymouth and Torbay. Dental practices in central Exeter, Plymouth, Torquay and the South Hams market towns trade on a mix of NHS contract and private revenue. Across the wider county, care home stock is heavily concentrated around the older-demographic belts: the east Devon coast, the Torbay residential belt, the South Hams and the Exeter retirement-village fringe. Lenders comfortable on healthcare in Devon typically have a dedicated specialist desk. Generalist bridging lenders rarely take healthcare at competitive pricing.
Valuation and lenders
Valuation and lender considerations.
Healthcare valuations come back on a trading-business basis for going-concern care homes, on an investment basis for tenanted clinics with a strong lease covenant, and on a vacant-possession-with-alternative-use basis where trading is interrupted or the operator is changing. Lenders lend on the lower of the relevant figures with an additional haircut for regulatory transition risk. LTV caps sit at 60 to 70% on tenanted clinics, 55 to 65% on going-concern care homes, and 50 to 60% on transition cases. United Trust Bank, Hope Capital, Shawbrook, Cambridge & Counties and OakNorth all take healthcare on bridging, with the dedicated healthcare desks at Allica Bank and HTB stronger at the larger end. CQC reports, trading accounts and operator covenant evidence drive the case.
What we arrange
What we typically arrange.
A typical Devon healthcare bridge sits at £600,000 to £5 million, 55 to 70% LTV, 9 to 18 months term, 0.85 to 1.25% per month, arrangement fee 1.5 to 2%. Operator transition cases run longer and price higher. Refurbishment-and-re-registration cases include a monitored works tranche. Exit is typically refinance to term commercial debt with a healthcare-specialist lender, sale to a regional operator group, or sale-and-leaseback to a healthcare REIT. Completion in 21 to 28 days is normal given the CQC and operator due-diligence work.
FAQs
Healthcare bridging questions
Can we bridge a care home purchase in Devon pending CQC registration transfer?
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Yes, and this is one of the more common healthcare cases. Lenders price for the regulatory transition risk and the period during which the new operator is awaiting full CQC registration. LTV typically caps at 55 to 60% during the transition, moving up to 65% once registration is confirmed and trading is rebased. The exit is usually refinance to term commercial debt with a healthcare-specialist lender at 12 to 18 months. We work with healthcare-property specialists from valuation through to legal completion.
How do bridging lenders view GP surgery purchases across Devon?
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GP surgeries with a long lease to NHS Property Services or to a GP partnership backed by the Devon Integrated Care Board read as relatively low-risk investment assets. Lenders price at 65 to 70% LTV on the investment value, with rate at 0.85 to 1.05% per month for clean cases. The exit is usually refinance to term commercial debt at a healthcare-specialist lender. Partnership-dissolution cases where speed is required sit firmly in the bridging space.
What does a refurbishment-and-re-registration case look like for a care home?
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The buyer acquires an older care home that needs material works to meet current CQC standards. The bridge funds the purchase at 60% LTV on vacant-possession value plus a works tranche released against monitoring sign-off. Once the works are complete and the new operator is registered with CQC, trading is rebased over six to nine months, and the exit is refinance to term commercial debt with a healthcare-specialist lender. Total term 15 to 24 months is typical.
Tell us about the deal
Indicative terms within 24 hours.
A short triage call, then a sized indicative offer against a named lender for your healthcare property in Devon or across Devon.
Regulated bridging on owner-occupied residential property falls under FCA regulation. Unregulated bridging on commercial and investment property does not. We are not directly regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and we introduce regulated cases to authorised partners who carry out the regulated activity.
Next step
Talk to a Devon healthcare bridging specialist.
We arrange short-term finance on healthcare property across Devon and the wider Devon market. Indicative terms in 24 hours.