Property type: Office
Office Property Bridging Loans Devon
We arrange bridging finance against office property across Exeter's financial-services corridor, Plymouth's marine-tech belt, the Torquay business district and the wider Devon office market. Loan sizes run £200,000 to £15 million, terms from 1 to 24 months, with completions in 7 to 21 days. Most office bridges price between 0.75% and 1.35% per month depending on covenant, vacancy and the credibility of the exit. The book skews toward repositioning, refurbishment and change-of-use rather than vanilla investment hold.
- Decisions in hours
- Completion in days
- £100k to £25m
- Devon specialists
Devon · Devon
Bridge to your next move.
The asset class
What office property looks like in Devon.
Office stock in Devon ranges from the Grade A floors at Exeter's Senate Court, the Mary Arches Street development and the larger Sowton Industrial Estate office buildings, through to secondary 1970s and 1980s blocks in central Exeter and central Plymouth, through to converted Georgian and Regency office terraces around Exeter Cathedral Yard and the Plymouth Mannamead villas. The Plymouth office market additionally carries the marine and defence supply chain estates around Devonport, Stonehouse and the Plymouth Science Park at Derriford. The market is bifurcated. Well-located, well-specced floors near Exeter city centre or the Plymouth Science Park let well, often to professional services, defence-tech and life-sciences occupiers. Secondary blocks have struggled with hybrid working and many are candidates for residential or hotel conversion under permitted development or full planning. Each of those positions reads differently to a bridging lender and the underwriting follows.
Use cases
Bridging use cases for office assets.
Office bridging in Devon clusters around six use cases. The first is repositioning of secondary stock, where a buyer takes a half-empty 1980s block in central Exeter or Plymouth, refurbishes the common parts and the floors, and re-lets at a higher tone. The second is change-of-use to residential under permitted development, which has driven a large share of the office bridging book across Plymouth and Exeter for the last seven years. The third is purchase of single-let investments with short unexpired terms, where the buyer expects either a re-gear or a vacant possession play. The fourth is development-exit where an office-to-resi conversion has reached practical completion and the units are marketing; bridging refinances the development facility while the sales close out. The fifth is capital raise against a low-LTV owner-occupied office, often by a professional services firm wanting to fund the next deposit or works elsewhere. The sixth is auction purchase of small office buildings, typically below £1 million, where the 28-day clock and the vacant possession risk push the deal into bridging rather than term debt. Across all six, lenders look for a clear exit and a buyer who has done it before.
Devon context
The Exeter Financial-Services Hub and Plymouth Marine-Tech Supply Chain
Devon office demand sits on top of an economy that is materially different from most of the rest of the South West. Exeter has built itself into a substantial financial-services and weather-and-climate office cluster. The Met Office sits on the Exeter Business Park at Sowton, with its supercomputing and climate-science workforce anchoring a high-value occupier base around the surrounding business park; EDF Trading runs a sizeable Exeter office close by. The wider Exeter financial-services and insurance hub draws on the city's University catchment, with the University of Exeter Business School and its graduate pipeline feeding into the surrounding employer base. Professional services firms, regional law firms and the chartered-accountancy networks all anchor the Cathedral Yard, Southernhay and Queen Street office market. Plymouth office demand runs on a different driver: the Babcock Devonport naval dockyard, the carrier-fleet sustainment work and a marine-tech and defence supply chain that supports a Tier 1 and Tier 2 occupier base across Stonehouse, Devonport and the Plymouth Science Park at Derriford. The Science Park itself houses biotech, marine-environmental and defence-tech occupiers, with the University of Plymouth marine-science research base feeding into the surrounding cluster. Torquay and Paignton carry a smaller, more locally-anchored office market serving the tourism economy and the Torbay public-sector base, with the Riviera Centre and Lymington Road business park stock the main draw. For a bridging case, the relevant point is that office demand in Devon is driven by weather-and-climate science, insurance, financial services, the naval-dockyard supply chain and marine-tech, rather than by the speculative tech-and-creative demand that drives Bristol or Reading. Lenders who understand this price the asset correctly. Lenders who do not, price as if it were any other secondary South West office market, and miss the deal.
Valuation and lenders
Valuation and lender considerations.
Office valuations come back on yield-and-rent for income-producing assets, vacant possession for empty floors, and residual or GDV for conversion plays. Bridging lenders generally lend on the lower of the relevant figures. LTV caps sit at 60 to 65% on vacant secondary office, 65 to 70% on tenanted investments with a recognisable covenant, and 60 to 65% on as-is value where the case is a conversion play with day-one drawdown plus a refurbishment tranche. MT Finance, Octane Capital, United Trust Bank, Hope Capital and Together all run office bridging, with Avamore Capital, ASK Partners, OakNorth and Shawbrook stronger at the larger end. Lenders care about planning position, covenant strength and the realism of the exit. Vague exits kill office cases harder than any other asset class.
What we arrange
What we typically arrange.
A typical Devon office bridge sits at £500,000 to £4 million, 60 to 70% LTV, 9 to 15 months term, 0.75 to 1.25% per month, arrangement fee 1.5 to 2%. We package the planning position, the covenant evidence and the exit plan up front so the lender sees the case the way the underwriter needs to see it. Conversion cases include a monitored works tranche; investment-purchase cases focus on the lease and the refinance route. Completion in 14 to 21 days is normal where the title and planning are clean. Where there is a contested planning position, the underwriting takes longer and the rate moves up.
FAQs
Office bridging questions
Can we bridge an office to residential conversion in Exeter or Plymouth?
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Yes. Office-to-residential conversions under Class MA permitted development and under full planning have been a steady part of the Devon bridging book since 2017. We arrange the day-one purchase tranche against the as-is office value, a works tranche released against monitoring sign-off, and exit to BTL refinance for held units or open-market sale for disposals. Conservation area and Article 4 directions apply in parts of Exeter and central Plymouth, so we check the planning position before going to lender and work with planning consultants who know the local authority position on these conversions.
What LTV is realistic on a vacant office block?
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Most lenders cap at 60 to 65% LTV against vacant possession value on a secondary office. Where the buyer has a credible repositioning plan, a strong track record, and a realistic refinance exit on a refurbished and re-let basis, 65% is achievable. Day-one LTV against purchase price can sit higher where the property is materially below market value, with the gap closed by an independent valuation. The exit drives the LTV more than the entry, so a clear refinance route opens the door to better terms.
Do bridging lenders take office cases backed by Met Office or Babcock supply-chain tenants?
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Yes, and the named-bridging lenders are comfortable with the Devon occupier profile. The Met Office and EDF Trading supply chain, the Exeter insurance and financial-services base, the Babcock and Plymouth Science Park defence and marine-tech tenants and University of Exeter and University of Plymouth spin-outs are all recognised covenants. Lenders price for unexpired lease term, break clauses and any government-contract dependency, with the strongest cases sitting at 65 to 70% LTV and the lower end at 60%. The presence of these anchor occupiers is generally seen as a stabilising factor for office demand in the city.
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 office 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 office bridging specialist.
We arrange short-term finance on office property across Devon and the wider Devon market. Indicative terms in 24 hours.