Broker Ask
A broker brought us a married couple looking to refinance their existing mortgage and cover ongoing litigation costs.
They needed a £1.3m bridging loan, split into two drawdowns of £1m and £250k. Both advances were earmarked purely for legal fees and would need to be backed by invoices.
The security was a residential property in Worcester. The plan was to repay either from a litigation settlement or by selling the property. Completion was targeted around August 2025, after their current lender had agreed to a three-month extension.
The Challenge
This one had some real complexity to it. The primary exit relied partly on an ongoing litigation claim, as no binding settlement existed at the point of completion.
Then the property was then down-valued from £3m to £2.3m. That pushed the LTV from the originally approved 60% up to around 70%. On top of that, funding in staged drawdowns tied to legal costs meant we needed tight controls on when and how money was released.
Timing added another layer. The 3-month extension from the existing lender meant that valuation and search documents would expire before completion, creating real pressure to keep things moving and maintain certainty.
The Fix
We originally approved this loan in March 2025. Between the valuation changes, the exit considerations and the timing pressures, completion didn’t actually happen until January 2026. Throughout that ten-month period, we stayed in regular contact with the broker and the borrowers, ensuring the structure still worked and that our decisions remained consistent as things evolved.
After a senior-level conversation about the revised valuation, we landed on updated terms: £1.3m at 70.37% LTV, priced at 0.94% and rolled up over a 12-month term.
The loan was structured with two net drawdowns of £1m and £250k, with the second release conditional on receipt of the relevant legal invoices. We built exit discipline directly into the offer: the borrowers would need to put the property on the open market within four months of completion, unless a binding settlement were reached beforehand.
We also required a repayment progress update within eight months and a clear commitment to sell if settlement funds didn’t come through within the loan term. On the valuation side, risk was managed by treating only four acres as a residential garden.
The Benefit
The clients got the refinance done without being pushed into a rushed sale. Legal costs were funded in a controlled way, tied to actual expenditure, while giving them real time and flexibility to pursue a settlement, with a clear fallback if it didn’t come through.
If your client needs flexible bridging finance to meet a tight deadline, get in touch with the Masthaven Finance team today – we’re ready when you are.
