Foreign national clients often struggle with UK property finance. Although the high street has increased its capacity for providing large mortgage products to UK borrowers, complex cases continue to require the attention of a private bank. I recently worked on an extremely complicated case for a foreign national client requiring a £5million facility against properties in Central London.
My client’s nationality was a stumbling block, as he was Iranian. He owned property in the UK and France, although he was primarily resident in Dubai and France. However, he had family links back to Iran, which would be an automatic cause to decline the case for many lenders. He had already tried to progress this case with several lenders, but unfortunately at the stage of the lender carrying out their due diligence checks, they had not been happy to proceed on the basis of his links to Iran.
The two properties in question were bought to lets in a very desirable area of London, with a total value of £14million. He had £5million to pay of his existing debt against the properties; unfortunately, his previous lender had a decreased appetite for lending to foreign nationals, so as an Iranian foreign national, he was not able to renew his facility.
He also had complicated income, with several businesses and a variety of income streams. Whilst this was not in itself a problem, his accountant was based in India, and did not work for a firm that most UK lenders would be familiar with. This also created a problem, as the accountants’ documents were necessary to gain a thorough sense of his actual global income, but the lenders who had seen them were not necessarily happy to accept them.
OUR SOLUTION
Fortunately, we have access to a full range of private banks, who are used to dealing with very complicated situations and global clients, including Iranian clients. I was actually able to introduce my client to a private banker who knew of the accountant in India, as he was from the locale. This meant the lender was able to verify the document straight away and proceed with offering terms for the case.
We were able to take out £7million in total; £5million to repay the existing debt, and £2million to place as assets under management with the new lender.
As this case shows, Enness Private Office is able to go above and beyond to secure terms for the most complex of cases, even if you have not found the solution you need elsewhere.
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