Private Bank Bridging Loans UK

A private bank bridging loan is short-term property finance arranged through an institution like Coutts, Weatherbys, or Arbuthnot Latham, rather than through the open market of specialist bridging lenders. Rates start from 0.3% per month on prime regulated cases, LTV can reach 90% for the right client, and regulated terms run up to five years. The catch is access. Private bank bridging is reserved for existing clients or qualifying introductions, and minimum loans typically start at £1 million.

The phrase itself causes confusion. Half the time someone calls us asking for "private bank bridging" they actually want a private (non-bank) lender, meaning a specialist bridging house. The other half, they want the real thing: bridging from a private banking institution, off the back of an existing relationship or a broker introduction. This guide is about the latter, and it covers the question we are usually asked once the terminology is sorted, which is when private bank bridging is genuinely the right tool, and when it is the slower, more expensive answer dressed up in a better suit.

What will private banks accept as security for a bridging loan?

Prime and super-prime is where private banks are most comfortable. Stick a piece of central London or a known country market on the desk and the conversation is short. Take them outside that zone and the appetite, the LTV, and the legal complexity all start to move.

The table below shows the typical maximum LTV by property type. One thing to flag before reading it: those LTVs are headline numbers. Once arrangement fees and any rolled-up interest are layered in, the gross LTV calculation will sit several points higher. A clean 70% on day one becomes 75% to 78% gross by the end of a twelve-month rolled facility.

Cross-collateralisation is where the higher LTVs come from. A borrower will often pledge their main residence alongside a buy-to-let or two, sometimes an investment portfolio held at the same bank, to land at the leverage they actually need on a new acquisition. The bank looks at the combined position, not the new property in isolation. This works because the institution is taking a wider view of the client; it does not work as cleanly with a specialist lender, where the security has to be tighter against the asset being purchased.

Non-property assets get accepted too: investment portfolios, structured deposits, life assurance policies. Always at the same institution though. Private banks will not take security over assets held with a competitor.

Which private banks offer bridging loans in the UK?

Only a handful of private banks lend on bridging in any volume, and none of them advertise it the way specialist lenders advertise their products. Most of this market moves through relationship managers and through a small number of brokers who place enough business with each institution to know the credit appetite from the inside.

Coutts

Coutts arranges bridging through its specialist lending team for private banking clients. Use cases are chain break, renovation, and investment purchases. Minimum loan size for the private banking arm is typically £1 million plus. Rates are not published; they are negotiated against the relationship. Existing clients can usually expect completion in five to seven working days. The entry threshold for Coutts private banking is around £1 million in investable assets, which acts as a soft gate even before bridging is discussed.

Weatherbys Private Bank

Weatherbys is the unusual one because it actually publishes its bridging rates. The headline is 2.59% per annum above the Bank of England base rate, which at 3.75% works out at 6.34% per annum, or roughly 0.53% per month. Arrangement fee is 1%. Weatherbys will look at borrowers over the age of 70 and has more flexibility on residency than most peers. Place £500,000 or more of surplus sale proceeds with them and they will discount the rate further; this is the kind of detail you only see if you place enough cases there to know it.

Arbuthnot Latham

Arbuthnot lends through its private banking division across London, Manchester, and Edinburgh. Pricing sits at a margin above its own base lending rate, currently 3.75%. Their underwriters are good at the more awkward income profiles, bonus, carried interest, overseas earnings, trust borrowing, partly because Arbuthnot's core client book skews towards exactly those professions. Cases that get bounced by mainstream lenders for income complexity reasons often land here cleanly.

Other private banks

C. Hoare and Co (the oldest private bank in the UK), Hampden and Co, and Close Brothers Private Bank also lend on property to existing clients. Of those three, Hampden and Co is the most accessible if you are not already banking there. The older institutions are harder to introduce into without a prior relationship; Hampden is the one we are most likely to suggest for a new introduction.

How do private bank bridging loans compare to specialist bridging lenders?

The choice is rarely as black and white as "rate versus speed". A better way to frame it: how big is the loan, how complex is the borrower, and how much time is on the clock?

There is also a third option worth knowing about. Lombard lending. Where the borrower has a sizeable liquid investment portfolio, equities, bonds, funds, the bank can lend against that portfolio rather than against any property at all. On a £5 million portfolio, a Lombard line will release somewhere between £2.5 million and £3 million within days. We have had cases where the right answer was not a bridge at all but a Lombard facility taken alongside a smaller specialist bridge, with the Lombard providing the deposit and the bridge covering the rest. It is an awkward product to source unless the bank is already in the picture, but for clients whose wealth is mostly in liquid assets rather than property, it can change the structure of the whole deal.

When to choose a private bank over a specialist lender

The cases where the private bank route genuinely earns its place are larger than borrowers expect, and there are fewer of them than the marketing suggests. The rate saving is a function of loan size and term, and below a certain threshold it stops being meaningful.

On a £2 million bridge, the gap between 0.35% and 0.65% per month is roughly £6,000 a month, which over an eighteen-month facility is £108,000. That is a real saving. On a £600,000 bridge, the same percentage gap is £1,800 a month, which over twelve months is £21,600, still useful, but smaller than the rate-comparison column suggests once you fold in the slower set-up time, the additional AML work, and the relationship overhead. By the time you account for the time cost of getting the deal funded, a specialist lender often comes out ahead at this size.

The other situations where a private bank wins are more about complexity than scale. Carried interest, offshore trust borrowing, share-vesting income, and SPVs that sit inside other SPVs are all things private banks underwrite without breaking stride. A specialist lender's credit committee will get there too, but the friction is real, and the timeline blows out. If the income or ownership structure is the awkward part of the case rather than the property, private banks generally settle the file faster than the rate sheet would predict.

And there are the cases where the relationship itself is the value. A private bank bridge that slides into a long-term mortgage facility with the same institution, plus wealth management on top, is a different conversation to a one-off deal placed with a specialist lender you will never use again. For some clients, that continuity matters; for others, it is irrelevant.

When to choose a specialist lender instead

For loans below £1 million, on auction deadlines, on chain collapses that need a decision in principle by the end of the day, or where there is no private banking relationship to lean on, a specialist lender is the right call. The open-market specialist sector is competitive enough to match private bank pricing on clean regulated cases, and the speed advantage is rarely matched. Specialist lenders also do products private banks largely will not, heavy refurbishment, development exit, commercial bridging on non-prime stock.

What we run into in practice is that most callers who ask for "private bank bridging" by name are better served somewhere else. Once the rate gets adjusted for set-up time and the size of the saving is sized properly, the specialist route often wins on net economics. The exception is large loans on prime London residential where the relationship is already in place. There, the private bank route is unbeatable.

How does the FCA high net worth exemption apply to private bank bridging loans?

Regulated bridging is bridging secured on a property the borrower lives in or intends to live in, and it sits under MCOB consumer protections by default. The FCA's high-net-worth mortgage exemption under the FCA high net worth definition allows qualifying borrowers to opt out of certain MCOB protections and access lending on terms a standard residential borrower could not. Private banks operate inside this exemption all the time; it is the legal mechanism that lets them offer regulated terms up to five years, which most specialist lenders cannot.

FCA high net worth definition is annual income above £300,000, or net assets above £3 million. Hitting that threshold does not automatically open the door to private bank bridging, but it is the gating test for the structuring options the private bank can offer, and it is the reason their term can run far longer than a specialist's twelve-month regulated cap.

What are the structuring options for high net worth borrowers using private bank bridging?

Most of the cases that need a private bank rather than a specialist lender are not about the property; they are about the borrower. Trusts, family partnerships, offshore holding companies, complex income that does not fit on a payslip. Specialist lenders will take some of this, but they take it slowly, and the legal team's first instinct is usually to ask for personal guarantees from the beneficial owner. Private banks, with the relationship in place, are more willing to lend to the structure on its own terms.

Cross-collateralisation over multiple properties

This is how the headline 80% to 90% LTVs actually get reached. The bank takes a charge over the new acquisition and a second charge over the existing main residence, or a buy-to-let portfolio, or a second home. Combined LTV across the lot stays at a level the credit committee is comfortable with, even though the LTV on the individual purchase looks high in isolation. Specialist lenders cross-charge too, but private banks are more relaxed about mixing property types and locations within the security pool.

SPV and trust borrowing

Where a property is held in an SPV, an LLP, or a trust, private banks tend to lend to the entity itself rather than insisting on a personal guarantee from the beneficial owner. The diligence is heavier, constitutional documents, beneficial ownership certifications, sometimes an extra round of legal review, but it gets done inside a workable timeline because the bank already knows the family or the ultimate beneficiary. Trying to do the same case at a specialist lender's credit committee inside a tight bridging window is genuinely hard.

Non-resident and overseas national borrowers

UK residents and non-residents both qualify, including overseas nationals borrowing through SPVs or LLPs. The bit borrowers underestimate is the source-of-wealth work the private bank will do on overseas income. It runs deeper than a specialist lender's checks and can add days, sometimes a week, to the timeline on cross-border transactions. Worth flagging upfront so the timeline expectation is realistic. Geographic appetite is strongest for England, Wales, and mainland Scotland.

How are private bank bridging loan interest rates structured?

Three structures are available: rolled-up, retained, and serviced. The choice tends to come down to cash flow rather than total cost, which is a different framing from the one you usually see in the marketing material.

Rolled-up interest

The most common structure on private bank bridging by some margin. No monthly payments. Interest accrues daily and gets repaid alongside the principal at redemption. On a £2 million bridge at 0.65% per month for twelve months, that is roughly £156,000 of accrued interest paid off at the end. Most clients we work with go rolled-up because they are protecting cash flow for something else, a refurbishment, a tax bill, the next acquisition, not because they could not afford the monthly payment if they had to. The trade-off is the gross LTV creeps up over the term as interest is added to the balance.

Retained interest

The full interest amount comes out of the drawdown on day one, ring-fenced by the bank. No monthly payments, but the net amount you receive is smaller. This works well when the lender wants certainty that interest is covered and the borrower is fine with the lower net advance. It does not work when every pound of the gross loan is needed to complete the purchase.

Serviced interest

Monthly payments throughout the term, paid from income or cash reserves. Total cost is lower because the balance does not compound, but the borrower is signing up to regular outgoings. On the same £2 million facility at 0.65% per month, serviced interest costs £13,000 a month. Most private banking clients have the cash flow to service if they choose to, but most prefer to roll up and free the liquidity for other uses. The clients who go serviced tend to be those running income at well above their fixed cost base, where the monthly outflow is genuinely no constraint.

What are the rates and costs for private bank bridging loans in the UK?

Pricing is relationship-led and not on a rate sheet, which is why this section relies on benchmarks rather than fixed numbers. Weatherbys publishes 2.59% per annum above base, which works out at about 0.53% per month at current base rate. Arbuthnot and Coutts price in similar territory for tightly-held cases, and the 0.3% per month figure, which gets quoted as the entry point to private bank bridging, is reserved for the strongest profiles on prime London security. In practice, most cases we arrange settle between 0.35% and 0.55% per month.

Arrangement fees run 0.5% to 1% of the loan. Exit fees are rare on private bank facilities, where some specialist lenders still charge 1% on redemption. On a £1.5 million loan, the saved 1% exit fee is £15,000. That alone can offset most of the rate premium a specialist lender might offer, which is the kind of all-in maths that gets missed when borrowers compare headline monthly rates only.

Total cost comparison: worked example

A £1.5 million regulated bridging loan on a £2.25 million prime London property (67% LTV), held for twelve months:

The £57,850 saving in this example is real, and at this loan size and term the case for the private bank is hard to argue against, provided the relationship exists or can be brought into existence in time. Halve the loan size and the absolute saving roughly halves with it. Push the term down to six months and it shrinks again. The maths is also why private bank bridging at sub-£1m loan sizes rarely makes commercial sense, the saving is too small to outweigh the slower mobilisation.

What are private bank bridging loans commonly used for?

The use cases where private bank bridging earns its place tend to share three features: high value, sensitivity to timing rather than urgency, and a borrower whose wealth and security are not concentrated in the property being bought.

Chain break: buying before your existing property sells

Far and away the most common use case. The borrower has found the new place but cannot complete until the existing home or investment property sells. A private bank takes a charge over the existing property, releases the funds for the new one, and is repaid when the original sells. We arranged a case last year for a Hampstead-based private banking client buying a £4 million townhouse in Notting Hill. Their existing property was on at £3.5 million, agent already instructed, viewings in hand. The bank advanced a £2 million bridge against the Hampstead home; the sale completed nine months later within asking-price range; the bridge was repaid from the sale and the new property went onto a long-term private bank facility at the same institution. Clean exit, evidenced from day one.

Property auction purchases

Auctions are where private bank bridging is most often the wrong tool. The 28-day completion clock does not give a new introduction enough time to clear AML, valuation, and credit, however clean the case. The exception is an existing client with a pre-agreed open bridge facility already in place, in which case the bank can fund inside the deadline because the heavy lifting has already been done. For a new private banking introduction we will almost always use a specialist lender to win the auction, then look at refinancing onto a private bank term facility once the deadline pressure is off.

Refinancing a maturing interest-only facility

Interest-only mortgages from the 2010-2015 vintage are running off the books across the UK market, and not everyone has a tidy exit lined up. Older borrowers holding illiquid country property are the cohort we see this in most. A private bank bridge can buy twelve to twenty-four months of breathing room while a sale is run properly rather than at a discount. We placed a twelve-month bridge for a borrower in his seventies on an £8 million Surrey estate where mainstream lenders had declined on age and affordability grounds. The bank took a pragmatic view, security covered the loan comfortably and the sale was a credible exit. The estate sold in eleven months, close to asking. Try doing the same case through standard MCOB and the affordability calculations kill it.

Portfolio restructuring and consolidation

Property investors often end up with a patchwork of facilities across multiple lenders, sometimes accumulated over years. A private bank bridge can be used to redeem all of them in one shot, buy out a co-investor, or release equity from an unencumbered property to fund a new acquisition. The bridge gives a clean refinance window, and the portfolio is then restructured onto longer-term private bank or specialist BTL facilities once the dust has settled.

Who is eligible for a private bank bridging loan in the UK?

Private bank lending is flexible but not loose. The credit teams care about total wealth, the credibility of the exit, and the relationship; they care less about salary multiples and standard affordability calculations than mainstream lenders do.

Who typically qualifies

UK-resident entrepreneurs and company directors. High-earning professionals in law, medicine, finance, technology. Family offices managing generational wealth. Overseas nationals buying UK residential. SPV and LLP investment vehicles. Either an existing client relationship or minimum investable assets of around £1 million is the usual gate for new introductions.

Credit profile tolerance

Private banks are more tolerant of historic credit issues than mainstream lenders. Settled CCJs, old defaults, gaps in credit history rarely kill a case on their own, especially where the exit is by sale and the asset values are comfortably above the loan. What is harder to get past is current arrears or unsatisfied CCJs, that is genuinely difficult regardless of how strong the asset position looks.

Documentation required

Standard pack: passport, proof of address, six months of bank statements, two years of tax returns or SA302s, company accounts for business owners, an asset and liability statement, mortgage statements on any pledged property, and evidence of the exit. For regulated facilities, additional MCOB suitability checks apply. For SPV or trust borrowing, the entity's constitutional documents and beneficial ownership confirmation. The cleaner this pack on day one, the faster the case moves; a thin submission is the single biggest reason for delays at the credit-review stage.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of private bank bridging loans?

Advantages

Lower rates for qualifying clients, from 0.3% per month at the prime end against 0.55% from a specialist. Higher LTV through holistic security assessment, up to 90% with cross-collateralisation. Underwriting that handles complex income, trust borrowing, and overseas wealth without the credit-committee friction a specialist lender will impose. Regulated terms up to five years rather than the standard twelve months. No exit fees in most cases. And the route into longer-term facilities at the same institution, which is the difference between a one-off transaction and a banking relationship that goes somewhere.

Disadvantages

Access is gated, you are either a client or you are introduced through a broker who places business with the institution regularly. Direct application off the website is rarely a route in. Minimum loan sizes start at £1 million in most cases. Mobilisation is slower for new introductions, twelve to seventeen days end to end versus five to fourteen for specialist lenders, mostly because the source-of-wealth work goes deeper. Auction deadlines are difficult without pre-agreed facilities. Legal complexity is higher because the structuring is genuinely specialist. And if the exit takes longer than the term, expect extension fees and default interest, which are real costs the headline rate does not capture.

How do you access a private bank bridging loan in the UK?

If you do not already bank somewhere private, the only practical way in is through a broker who maintains formal introductory relationships with the institutions. The broker prepares a credit summary, your asset position, the property, the proposed exit, and submits it to the bank for an initial review before any formal application is committed.

Not every broker has these relationships. A generalist mortgage broker will route the case to the open specialist lender market by default because that is where their panel sits. If private bank bridging is genuinely the right answer for the deal, you need a broker who places business with both private banks and specialist lenders, and who can tell you objectively which is the better fit before introducing the case anywhere.

Frequently asked questions