A county of two halves
Dorset is unusual among English counties for its sharp two-tier structure. The south-east coast carries the BCP unitary authority covering Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, a conurbation of around 400,000 residents that holds the financial-services anchor, the deepest investor property market and most of the lending volume. The rest of the county, covered by Dorset Council unitary, runs inland to the Blackmore Vale and along the Jurassic Coast, with market towns like Sherborne, Shaftesbury, Dorchester and Bridport carrying smaller but premium property economies built on private schools, second homes and South East inward migration.
This page is a working briefing rather than a brochure. It is written for people who already know roughly what a bridge is and who want to know how the Dorset market is behaving in 2026, which lenders are pricing each segment, and what a deal actually looks like when it crosses our desk. We cover the geography that shapes the lending map, the pricing and appetite picture across the county, the use cases driving deal flow, four sector deep-dives where Dorset has its sharpest edge, the lender panel we work with, five worked recent deals, and a forward look into 2027. Read it end to end if you have ten minutes, or skip to the section that maps to the case in front of you. Either way, when you want to talk a deal through, the contact details sit at the foot of every page on this site.
Dorset in the South West economy
Dorset sits on the south-west English coast between the New Forest to the east and Devon to the west, with Somerset on its northern boundary and Wiltshire to the north-east. The county covers around 1,025 square miles, with a population of approximately 780,000 split between the BCP conurbation at around 400,000 and the wider Dorset Council unitary at around 380,000. The geography is unusually varied: the south coast carries the Jurassic Coast UNESCO World Heritage Site from Studland west to Lyme Regis, the chalk downs of the South Dorset Ridgeway run through the central county, the Blackmore Vale opens out across north Dorset with its agricultural and dairy landscape, and the western county carries the Hardy-era market towns and the West Dorset clay-and-chalk country toward the Devon boundary.
The BCP unitary on the south-east coast is the population and economic anchor. Bournemouth holds J.P. Morgan's largest UK office outside London with several thousand staff at the Holes Bay campus and town-centre buildings, Vitality and Nationwide both run substantial regional operations from the town, and a wider financial-services and asset-management cluster has settled around the Lansdowne and Richmond Hill office stock. Poole carries Sunseeker International's yacht-building operations on Poole Quay, the RNLI headquarters at West Quay Road, and the Sandbanks peninsula at BH13 which holds the most expensive non-London residential postcode by average value in the country. Christchurch carries a quieter retirement-market profile with the Mudeford and Highcliffe coastal stock and the Hurn aerospace cluster around Cobham and Honeywell. Bournemouth University adds around 19,000 students to the conurbation, AFC Bournemouth anchors the eastern leisure economy with Premier League football, and the seafront tourism economy runs through the May to September peak season.
The Dorset Council unitary covers the rest of the county and presents a very different economic and property profile. Dorchester at DT1 is the county town, anchored by Dorset County Hospital, the Dorset Council administration, the Brewery Square redevelopment on the former Eldridge Pope brewery site, and the Poundbury Prince's Foundation new-urbanism development on the western edge of the town. Weymouth and Portland on the central south coast carry the holiday-let economy, the 2012 Olympic sailing legacy at the National Sailing Academy on Portland Harbour, and the Brittany Ferries route to the Channel Islands. Sherborne in the north carries one of the most concentrated private-school clusters in southern England with Sherborne School, Sherborne Girls, Leweston and Sherborne Prep all serving a wider South East and international parent market. Shaftesbury, Blandford Forum, Bridport, Beaminster, Wareham and Wimborne Minster all carry premium market-town property economies tied to the South East inward migration that has run through Dorset for the past two decades.
The road network defines how property finance moves around the county. The A35 trunk road runs east-west across the county from the eastern boundary at the New Forest through Bournemouth, Poole, Dorchester, Bridport and on to Lyme Regis and the Devon boundary. The A37 runs north from Dorchester to Yeovil and the Somerset boundary, providing the inland north-south connection. The A338 spur from the M27 corridor at Cadnam runs south to Bournemouth and provides the principal motorway link for the BCP conurbation. The A30 trunk road runs east-west across the northern county from Shaftesbury and Sherborne through to Yeovil, the Somerset boundary and onward to the A303 corridor. The A350 north-south through Blandford Forum and Shaftesbury connects the BCP conurbation to the A303 and the rail commuter belt at Gillingham. Rail connectivity is uneven: Bournemouth, Poole, Christchurch, Dorchester South and Weymouth carry direct London Waterloo services on the South Western Railway main line, Sherborne and Gillingham carry direct services to Waterloo via Salisbury, and the inland towns of Shaftesbury, Sturminster Newton, Blandford Forum, Beaminster and Bridport carry no rail station at all.
The Dorset bridging market 2026
Bridging activity in Dorset has held up better through 2025 and into 2026 than the wider South West picture might suggest. Four forces explain that. The BCP conurbation continues to generate substantial owner-occupier and investor flow on the back of its financial-services employer base and the steady South East inward migration. The Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs premium tier produces multi-million regulated chain-break cases as a matter of routine. The Jurassic Coast holiday-let market remains liquid and supports a consistent investor flow into seafront flat stock from Swanage west to Lyme Regis. And the private-school relocations into Sherborne, Shaftesbury and the surrounding rural villages produce a recurring premium chain-break stream tied to September and January admission dates.
On rates, the picture in May 2026 is steadier than it was eighteen months ago. The ranges we are pricing across the panel are as follows. Regulated bridging on owner-occupied homes is sitting between 0.55% and 0.85% per month, with the lower end reserved for clean chain-break cases at 65% loan-to-value or below and a clear onward-sale exit. The multi-million Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs regulated tier prices at the lower end of that range. Unregulated standard bridging on investment, buy-to-let and refurbishment stock is running between 0.65% and 1.25% per month, with the bulk of our Dorset book pricing inside 0.75% to 0.95%. Heavy refurbishment and development-exit cases sit at 0.75% to 1.5% per month, with pricing driven by build complexity, the strength of the contractor, and the planned exit. Second-charge bridging behind an existing first sits at the upper end of those bands.
Loan sizes across the county run from £150,000 at the smaller Portland and Weymouth town-centre end up to £25 million on substantial Sandbanks regulated chain-break or larger BCP commercial mixed-use sites. The middle of the book, where most of our Dorset work sits, is £250,000 to £2 million. The Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs tier sits noticeably higher at £750,000 to £5 million on regulated chain-break and capital-raise cases. Terms are short by design. Six to twelve months covers most cases. Eighteen months is available where the works schedule needs it or where listed-building consent timetables apply on conservation-area stock. Twenty-four months is unusual on a standard bridge and is more often a signal that the deal wants development finance or term commercial debt rather than a bridge.
Lender appetite in Dorset splits along the two-tier county structure. The BCP conurbation suits the full panel, with all eight headline lenders writing business across BH1 to BH22 on standard residential, investment, refurbishment and dev-exit patterns. The Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs premium tier suits the larger institutional specialists, with United Trust Bank and Octopus Real Estate taking the multi-million regulated cases cleanly. The inland Dorset Council unitary suits the panel slightly differently, with the rural village and conservation-area stock favouring lenders with experience of listed buildings, thatched roofs and longer refurbishment timetables. Hope Capital, Together and Avamore Capital all show stronger appetite for the rural and premium country stock than some of the more standard-spec lenders. Holiday-let stock on the Jurassic Coast suits lenders comfortable with coastal locations and specialist short-let exit routes, with Roma Finance and Glenhawk both writing useful volume here.
What is moving the deal flow in 2026, in plain terms, is a combination of the financial-services and university-driven BCP conurbation activity, the Sandbanks premium chain-break stream, the school-relocation pattern into Sherborne and Shaftesbury, the steady South East inward migration into the rural market towns and village stock, the Jurassic Coast holiday-let acquisition flow, and a growing development-exit book as the apartment pipeline that ran hot through 2022 to 2024 across the BCP town centres reaches practical completion in volume. We see a thinner book of pure speculative purchases, which fits the wider south-coast picture, and we see chain-break activity holding roughly flat against last year. Dorset is one of the more balanced county-level bridging markets we see, neither overheating in any segment nor collapsing in any other.
When Dorset investors and owners use bridging
Bridging in Dorset distributes itself across the eight use cases the master network covers, but the weights differ from the national average. The most distinctive Dorset pattern is the school-relocation chain-break into Sherborne and Shaftesbury, with the September and January admission deadlines for Sherborne School, Sherborne Girls and the wider private-school cluster producing a concentrated rush of completion deadlines that bridging is uniquely placed to handle. Families relocating from London and the South East buy onward into the catchment, complete inside three weeks from instruction, and exit on the sale of their existing home through the back end of the calendar.
The Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs premium chain-break runs second in distinctiveness. Multi-million regulated cases on the BH13 peninsula are routine, with owner-occupiers trading between substantial homes on the harbour or the Bay views and using six to nine-month bridges at the cleaner end of the regulated band to bridge the gap between their onward completion and their existing sale. Pricing here sits at 0.55% to 0.75% per month, LTV at 60 to 70% against the onward property, and the institutional specialist lenders take the larger tickets cleanly.
Holiday-let acquisition across the Jurassic Coast forms the third major Dorset use case. From Swanage and the Isle of Purbeck eastern coast through Weymouth, Portland, Charmouth and on to Lyme Regis at the western end, the coastal strip carries a mature short-let property economy with year-round visitor flow. Investors buy seafront flats and harbour-front cottages on six to nine-month bridges at 0.85% to 0.95% per month, underwriting on long-let comparable rent, with exit on BTL refinance or sale once the rental position is settled. Lyme Regis, West Bay, Weymouth seafront, Studland and Swanage Bay are the principal hotspots, with Portland the more affordable option for first-time holiday-let investors.
HMO conversion and refurbishment for the Bournemouth University catchment runs as the fourth major use case. BH8 Charminster, BH9 Winton and parts of BH5 Boscombe carry the densest student-let stock in the BCP conurbation, with three and four-bed terraces converted to licensed five and six-bed HMOs on 12 to 18-month bridges at 0.95% to 1.25% per month. Article 4 direction zones across parts of Winton, Charminster, Boscombe and Lansdowne require full planning consent for HMO conversion, and we build that timetable into the bridge term. Works budgets sit at £40,000 to £100,000 against purchase prices of £280,000 to £380,000.
Auction completion is the fifth major use case, distributed across the BCP conurbation, Weymouth, Portland and the inland market towns. The Allsop national rooms and the regional rooms at Yeovil, Exeter and Bournemouth itself routinely list Dorset stock from £150,000 town-centre flats up to £600,000 detached country houses. We turn around indicative terms inside 24 hours of receiving the auction pack, complete in 10 to 14 days using title insurance and a streamlined valuation, well inside the 28-day auction clock. Refurbishment-to-BTL is the standard exit pattern, with BTL refinance landing once the works and tenancy settle. Development-exit, capital-raise against unencumbered period or rural stock, and below-market-value purchase finance round out the use-case picture and form the remaining three streams in our Dorset book.
Sector deep-dives
Jurassic Coast premium holiday-let, Lyme Regis to Swanage
The Dorset Jurassic Coast UNESCO route runs from Studland at the eastern end west through Swanage Bay, around the Isle of Purbeck, through Weymouth and Chesil Beach, past Portland to the south, on through West Bay and Charmouth, and ending at Lyme Regis at the western Devon boundary. The coastline carries a substantial year-round visitor economy driven by fossil-hunting, beach tourism, sailing, walking and the wider UNESCO heritage marketing that has run since 2001. The holiday-let property market that has built around this coastal strip is mature, with most of the front-line seafront stock owned by either second-home buyers, family-trust holdings or commercial holiday-let operators. The bridging activity in this segment splits across three patterns. First, acquisition of seafront flats and harbour-front cottages with an exit on BTL refinance once the rental calendar settles. Second, refurbishment of period coastal stock for sympathetic restoration before re-let or sale, often with listed-building consent considerations on the Lyme Regis and Wareham conservation areas. Third, capital-raise against unencumbered front-line stock for deposit funding on the next coastal acquisition. Yields are firm on the long-let comparable basis, typically 4.5 to 6.5% gross, with the short-let summer income running two to three times the long-let equivalent on the better stock. Pricing on holiday-let bridges sits at 0.85% to 0.95% per month at 65 to 70% LTV, with Roma Finance and Glenhawk both useful on the segment alongside the standard panel.
BCP conurbation HMO, Bournemouth University and finance-sector lets
The Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch conurbation carries the deepest HMO and converted-flat investment market in Dorset. Bournemouth University with around 19,000 students concentrated across the Talbot campus at the BH9 and BH12 boundary and the Lansdowne campus in BH1 provides the principal student-let tenant base, with three and four-bed terraces in BH8 Charminster, BH9 Winton, BH5 Boscombe and the western edge of BH3 routinely converted to licensed five and six-bed HMOs. Article 4 direction zones across parts of Winton, Charminster, Boscombe and Lansdowne require full planning consent for new HMO conversions rather than relying on permitted development rights. The bridging activity here is concentrated on heavy refurbishment cases of 12 to 18 months at 0.95% to 1.25% per month, with works budgets of £40,000 to £100,000 against purchase prices in the £280,000 to £380,000 band. Beyond the student-let segment, the BCP conurbation also carries a substantial professional-let market tied to the J.P. Morgan, Vitality, Nationwide and wider financial-services employer base. Single-let and small-HMO investments serving financial-sector professional tenants across BH1, BH4, BH7 and BH14 form a smaller but higher-quality second tier, with bridges typically lighter in works scope and shorter in term.
Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs luxury chain-break
The Sandbanks peninsula at BH13 holds the most expensive non-London residential postcode by average value in the country. The peninsula extends south from Canford Cliffs into Poole Harbour, with the harbour to the west and Poole Bay to the east, and the housing stock includes substantial detached houses, mansion blocks and luxury apartments. Sales values run from around £1.5 million for smaller flats up to £10 million for the best front-line houses. Canford Cliffs and the immediately adjacent Branksome Park carry similar premium values without quite the Sandbanks address premium. The chain-break bridging activity here is distinctive. Owner-occupiers trading between substantial homes on the peninsula routinely run into the timing gap between their onward completion and their existing sale, particularly given the protracted chain dynamics that come with multi-million transactions and the limited stock turnover. Regulated bridges at six to nine-month terms, 60 to 70% LTV against the onward property, pricing at 0.55% to 0.75% per month at the cleaner end of the regulated band. Multi-million regulated cases pass to our regulated partner firm. United Trust Bank and Octopus Real Estate are the institutional lenders most often suited to the larger tickets, with completions routine inside 18 to 21 days from instruction. Capital-raise bridging against unencumbered Sandbanks or Canford Cliffs stock for deposit funding on the next acquisition is the secondary pattern, at £500,000 to £2 million against open-market value, 50 to 65% LTV, 6 to 12-month terms.
Sherborne and Shaftesbury private-school catchment refurb
The northern Dorset market towns of Sherborne and Shaftesbury anchor a private-school cluster that draws families from London, the South East and increasingly from international markets. Sherborne School, founded 1550, occupies a substantial campus at the northern end of Sherborne town. Sherborne Girls sits at the south-western fringe. Leweston and Sherborne Prep complete the immediate cluster, and the wider DT9 catchment carries Hazlegrove Prep at the Somerset boundary. Shaftesbury carries Port Regis Prep and a steady share of the wider Vale private-school feeder demand. The bridging activity here is dominated by school-admission chain-break cases tied to the September and January intake dates, with families completing onward purchases in the three weeks before term starts and exiting the bridge on the sale of their existing home. Pricing at 0.55% to 0.75% per month, regulated, 65 to 70% LTV, six to nine-month terms. The secondary pattern is refurbishment of period and rural village stock in the catchment, often substantial stone country houses with listed-building consent timetables that require 12 to 18-month bridges at 0.95% to 1.15% per month. The wider Blackmore Vale and Cranborne Chase rural village stock surrounding both towns carries premium values of £500,000 to £1.5 million on stone-built detached and converted-barn properties, supporting a capital-raise stream against the unencumbered country stock that has accumulated through long ownership.
Dorset bridging lenders, who is active and why
Our headline panel is eight lenders, chosen because together they cover the full range of bridging activity in Dorset without duplication. They are MT Finance, Octane Capital, Roma Finance, United Trust Bank, Hope Capital, Together, LendInvest, and Octopus Real Estate. Each prices differently across the segments, and the case for taking a deal to a particular lender turns on where the case sits in the Dorset matrix.
MT Finance is the workhorse on standard unregulated bridging up to roughly £3 million, with quick decisions and a clean credit policy. They suit straightforward investment-property purchases and standard refurbishment exits across the BCP conurbation and the wider Dorset Council unitary. Octane Capital takes the heavier lift, including heavy refurbishment, mixed-use, light development and more complex security profiles. They are often the right call on a BH1 town-centre conversion case where the works are substantial, or on a listed Dorchester or Sherborne refurbishment where the consent timetable runs long. Roma Finance is strong on refurbishment-to-BTL and the buy-refurbish-refinance pattern, particularly across the BCP commuter belt stock and the BH22 Ferndown, BH21 Wimborne and BH23 Christchurch fringe. United Trust Bank sits at the regulated end of the panel, pricing tightly on owner-occupier chain-break work where the security and exit are clean. UTB is one of the principal lenders on the Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs multi-million regulated tier, and on the school-relocation chain-break cases into Sherborne and Shaftesbury where the timing is tight and the security is high quality.
Hope Capital is competitive on mid-band investment bridging and light-to-medium refurbishment, with a useful appetite for less standard properties including the rural village stone-built stock across the wider Dorset Council unitary and the Vale and Cranborne Chase rural premium tier. Together spans regulated and unregulated, with particular strength on complex circumstances such as adverse credit or unusual borrower profiles where a clean exit makes the case work. They are also useful on rural stock with thatched roofs or other features that narrow the mainstream panel. LendInvest moves quickly on larger residential investment cases and on development-exit, with technology-driven processes that suit time-sensitive applications. They write useful volume on the BH1 town-centre and Poole Quay apartment pipeline coming through practical completion in 2026. Octopus Real Estate writes the larger end of the book, including development-exit on schemes from £2 million up, mixed-use, and more substantial commercial bridges where institutional capital and bigger ticket sizes are required. Octopus takes a meaningful share of the Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs premium chain-break book and the larger Poole and Bournemouth dev-exit cases.
Beyond the eight, we work regularly with Shawbrook, Precise Mortgages, Allica Bank, Bridgebank Capital, Avamore Capital, Glenhawk, Aldermore, Kuflink, ASK Partners and OakNorth. Each has a niche worth knowing in the Dorset context. Shawbrook and Allica price well on cleaner semi-commercial bridges across the BCP town centres. Bridgebank, Avamore and Glenhawk all have well-developed appetite for refurbishment and small development work that suits the Dorset investor profile, particularly on the BH1 to BH11 Bournemouth refurbishment book and the holiday-let coastal segment. Glenhawk is one of the stronger panel options on the Jurassic Coast holiday-let acquisition flow. Kuflink and Precise round out the panel with quick smaller-ticket work and the option of a portfolio approach on multi-property cases. ASK Partners and OakNorth come in on the largest tickets where a commercial relationship and larger lend make sense, particularly on substantial mixed-use or development-exit cases in the BCP conurbation. The point of carrying that breadth is not to chase the cheapest headline rate on every case. It is to have a credible answer for every case, because the right lender on a Dorset deal is almost never the lender who answered the previous one.
Five recent Dorset deals, anonymised
1. Auction completion, Weymouth seafront flat
A two-bedroom Georgian flat on the Weymouth Esplanade in DT4 bought at the Allsop national auction for £215,000 with vacant possession and a standard auction pack. Bridge of £170,000 at 75% of purchase price plus a small cosmetic refurbishment budget of £18,000, nine-month term, exit through buy-to-let refinance once the property is let to a year-round professional tenant. Indicative terms inside 24 hours of the hammer falling. Valuation booked within 48 hours, title insurance applied to bridge a thin search pack, drawdown on day eleven. Rate at 0.85% per month. The cleanest version of the Weymouth auction pattern that runs through the Dorset book month after month, with the Esplanade conservation-area considerations handled at survey stage rather than slowing the completion timetable.
2. Sandbanks chain-break, BH13 premium
A BH13 owner-occupier accepted an offer on their existing Canford Cliffs family home at £2.8 million, with a delayed completion the buyer's chain could not bring forward. Their onward purchase, a substantially larger property on Banks Road, Sandbanks at £4.2 million, required completion in four weeks to hold the seller's chain together. Regulated bridge of £2.0 million arranged at 65% loan-to-value against the onward property, nine-month term, exit through completion of the existing sale. Rate at 0.65% per month at the cleaner end of the regulated band. Introduced through our regulated introducer partner for the regulated activity, packaged and completed in 19 days from instruction. The standard Sandbanks premium chain-break pattern that runs through any Dorset year, with United Trust Bank providing the lend at competitive pricing on clean owner-occupier security.
3. BH8 Charminster HMO refurbishment, Bournemouth
A four-bedroom Victorian terrace on Charminster Road in BH8 acquired by an investor for £325,000, requiring conversion to a licensed six-bed HMO serving the Bournemouth University student market. Total loan facility of £385,000 covering purchase and works, drawn against gross development value of £475,000 on the assumed completed HMO scheme. Fifteen-month term to allow for the Article 4 planning consent timetable, the works programme of £75,000, and a portfolio HMO refinance on completion. Pricing at 1.05% per month, with arrangement and exit terms reflecting the heavier refurbishment profile and the Article 4 planning risk. A case where Octane Capital takes the deal cleaner than a standard-spec lender, with staged drawdowns against monitoring inspections matching lender risk to actual progress on site.
4. Development exit, Poole town centre apartments
A twelve-unit residential apartment scheme reaching practical completion in BH15 at the Holes Bay regeneration corridor, originally funded on development finance through 2023 and 2024, with six units already reserved and six to market. Refinance bridge of £2.4 million at 65% of gross development value of £3.7 million, twelve-month term to allow for unit sales to complete. Step-down in pricing from the development facility of roughly 0.4% per month, providing the borrower with carry savings that more than cover the arrangement fee. Pricing at 0.85% per month. Octopus Real Estate as the typical home for cases of this size and shape, with completions running through the back end of 2026 and into early 2027 as the sales pace settles into a steady monthly run rate.
5. Lyme Regis holiday-let cottage purchase
An investor acquiring a two-bedroom period cottage on Coombe Street in central Lyme Regis for £385,000, with intent to operate as a Jurassic Coast holiday-let across the year. Bridge of £270,000 at 70% of purchase price, nine-month term, exit through BTL refinance to a specialist holiday-let term lender once the rental position is settled. Underwriting on long-let comparable rent at £1,250 per month, supporting a gross yield of 4.5% on the long-let basis, with the short-let summer income running substantially higher. Pricing at 0.89% per month. Glenhawk on the bridge given their useful coastal appetite, with the term refinance landing on a holiday-let specialist after the cottage had completed its first six months of short-let operation. A pattern repeated dozens of times a year across the Jurassic Coast western anchor.
Outlook 2026 to 2027 and how we work
The forward view for Dorset bridging is steady rather than dramatic. We expect the regulated end of the market to soften modestly through the back end of 2026 as buy-to-let term-rate pricing settles, which should pull regulated bridging pricing down with it. Unregulated standard bridging is likely to hold close to current levels, with competition between specialist lenders keeping pricing honest in the middle of the book. Heavy refurbishment and development-exit pricing will move with the appetite of the larger specialist lenders, and we expect that to remain firm given the supply of completed BH1 and BH15 apartment stock coming through the local pipeline. The Sandbanks and Canford Cliffs premium tier is expected to hold its distinctive pricing band at the cleaner end of the regulated market, with United Trust Bank and Octopus Real Estate continuing as the principal panel options for the larger regulated cases. The deal flow itself should hold or grow, particularly on the refurbishment-to-BTL and development-exit segments, given the structural supply of Victorian, Edwardian and Georgian stock across the BCP conurbation and the inland market towns, the continuing South East inward migration into the Dorset Council unitary, and the recurring school-admission chain-break pattern through the Sherborne and Shaftesbury catchments.
The split between regulated and unregulated work on our Dorset book runs roughly twenty-five per cent regulated, seventy-five per cent unregulated. The regulated portion sits mostly in chain-break cases for owner-occupiers across BH13 Sandbanks, BH4 Westbourne, BH3 Talbot Woods, DT9 Sherborne, SP7 Shaftesbury, DT1 Dorchester and DT11 Blandford. The unregulated portion covers the investor and developer book in full, including the HMO conversion stream in Bournemouth, the holiday-let acquisition flow along the Jurassic Coast, the auction-to-BTL pattern across the affordable BH and DT stock, the dev-exit book in the BCP town centres, and the rural village refurbishment work across the Vale and Cranborne Chase. We are not directly authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. Regulated bridging on owner-occupied residential property is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and we introduce regulated cases to authorised partners who carry out the regulated activity and provide any required advice. We do not give advice on regulated bridging, regulated mortgages, or investment products.
On timelines, the standard expectations apply. Indicative terms inside 24 hours of a complete enquiry. Full underwriting in three to five working days once the lender has the pack. Valuation in five to ten working days depending on the valuer's diary and the access situation at the property, with rural and Jurassic Coast village valuations sometimes taking longer due to surveyor specialism and travel. Legal completion in five to ten working days after valuation, with auction cases pushed harder using title insurance where the seller's pack supports it. Total elapsed time from first call to drawdown sits between ten and twenty-one days on most cases. Auction cases run faster, with seven to fourteen days achievable where the pack is clean. The school-admission deadlines in Sherborne and Shaftesbury produce a tighter target of fifteen to eighteen days from instruction, which is hit routinely on properly packaged cases.
On fees, we are transparent. Lender arrangement fees typically run at 1.5% to 2.0% of the loan, added to the facility on most products. Valuation is payable on a case-by-case basis, with a typical residential valuation for a standard Dorset house at around £500 to £1,200, and larger or more complex properties at £1,500 to £3,500. Legal costs sit at both borrower and lender side, typically £1,500 to £5,000 per side on standard cases, higher on multi-million Sandbanks or substantial development-exit cases. Exit fees are zero on most products. Broker fees, where charged, are disclosed in writing before any work starts.
How we work is simple. A short triage call to understand the deal, the security, the timeline and the proposed exit. A written summary of indicative terms inside 24 hours, identifying the two or three lenders best placed to fund the case. A packaged submission with a valuation booking and legal instruction ready to go on lender selection. Then steady, weekly progress until drawdown. We do not run drip-email funnels, we do not chase clients through aggressive call cycles, and we do not promise rates we cannot deliver. The Dorset bridging market rewards specific work done at speed across a county of striking variety. That is what we set the desk up to do.