Commercial mortgage brokers: your building decides more than your accounts do
By the CapExpand team
Reviewed by Alex Beardsley, Founder · UK commercial finance broker
The short version
- Lender appetite by property type spans a factor of 5.1 on our panel: 36 lenders for offices, 20 for pubs, 7 for churches, checked September 2026.
- Maximum loan-to-value spans 60% to 100% with a median of 75%, so a 25% deposit is the planning assumption and the sector moves it.
- The annual rate spans 4.6% to 11.4% at 70% loan-to-value across 402 products, a ceiling roughly 2.5 times the floor.
Most commercial mortgage advice is written as though the decision turns on your accounts. For a great many buildings it turns first on the building, because a lender that will not take your property type is not going to be argued round by a strong balance sheet. CapExpand is a broker with 45 commercial mortgage lenders inside a panel of 200+, and the counts below come from that platform extract.
The sector sets the deposit
This is the table that decides most cases, and it is not published anywhere else. Counts are distinct lender brands on our panel willing to consider that property type at September 2026. They describe appetite, not approval.
A thin list does not usually produce a refusal. It produces a worse deal, because nobody is competing for the business: a larger deposit, a shorter term, a tighter covenant. That is why the useful question at the outset is not what rate you can get but how many lenders will look at all, and it is the question a broker can answer before anything is submitted.
Owner-occupied against investment
The two are underwritten differently and it is worth being clear which you are. On an owner-occupied purchase the lender reads your trading accounts alongside the property, so it has two things to rely on, and owner-occupiers commonly reach a higher loan-to-value than investors on the same building. On an investment purchase the rent and the tenant carry the case, which puts the lease length and the tenant's covenant strength at the centre of the decision.
Landlord experience is a separate gate on the investment route: 21 of our lenders will consider a borrower with none. A first commercial investment is placeable; it is simply a shorter list than the headline count suggests.
What the panel prices at
An annual rate spanning 4.6% to 11.4% with a median around 7.3%, measured at 70% loan-to-value across 402 products and checked September 2026. The ceiling is about 2.5 times the floor, which is the honest reason to distrust any advertised from-rate: it quotes the bottom of a range almost nobody sits at. Spans are facts about panel products on a date, never an offer, and your pricing is set by the lender on your case.
To model a payment on your own figures, our commercial mortgage calculator runs the same spans over your loan, term and repayment basis.
Every commercial mortgage lender on our panel
45 lenders, 463 live commercial mortgage products. Most brokers say “100+ lenders” and name none. These are ours, so you can check them. One enquiry is checked against the criteria of all of them before anything is submitted.
| Lender | Products | Size range | Rate span |
|---|---|---|---|
| NatWest | 116 | £50,000 to £25m | 5.75% to 8.67% |
| Shawbrook Bank | 50 | £40,000 to £2.5m | 6.44% to 9.94% |
| Interbay Bank | 33 | £100,000 to £25m | 6.09% to 8.29% |
| Together | 26 | £30,000 to £5m | 6.69% to 9.79% |
| Atom Bank | 24 | £100,000 to £20m | 6.62% to 8.24% |
| Allica Bank | 23 | £150,000 to £15m | 5.7% to 7.9% |
| Redwood Bank | 18 | £250,000 to £10m | 4.94% to 7.74% |
| Lloyds | 15 | £100,000 to £10m | 5.05% to 6.74% |
| Yorkshire Building Society | 14 | £250,000 to £20m | 4.55% to 7.15% |
| Aldermore | 12 | £200,000 to £25m | 5.19% to 7.79% |
| Roma Finance | 12 | £75,000 to £3m | 7.16% to 9.98% |
| West One | 12 | £50,000 to £5m | 8.09% to 9.24% |
| Barclays | 11 | £50,000 to £50m | 5.75% to 6.45% |
| Hampshire Trust Bank | 9 | £100,000 to £5m | 5.54% to 6.74% |
| Cambridge and Counties Bank | 8 | £250,000 to £15m | 6.49% to 8.25% |
| Metro Bank | 7 | £250,000 to £20m | 6.94% to 7.75% |
| MT Finance | 7 | £25,001 to £2.5m | 7.45% to 8.55% |
| Quantum Mortgages | 7 | £25,001 to £1m | 6.24% to 8% |
| Ecology Building Society | 4 | £250,000 to £3m | 7% |
| HSBC | 4 | £30,000 to £10m | 5.95% to 6.45% |
Plus 25 further commercial mortgage lenders on the panel. The full roster is published on our lender directory.
Spans across each lender's commercial mortgage products on our panel, checked September 2026. These are not offers, quotes or rates you will be given, and a dash means we hold no published figure for that field. Rates move and lender criteria change. All lending is subject to status and the lender's own checks. Being on the panel is a fact about the panel: it is not an endorsement of CapExpand by any lender named, and implies no affiliation. Panel composition changes.
What a broker costs
We are paid a commission by the lender on completion and charge you nothing. Client fees exist in commercial property, more often on larger or unusual buildings, and are legitimate where they are disclosed in writing before you commit. A fee payable before a case has been placed anywhere is a different thing. Ask who pays, how much, and when it becomes payable.
What a lender will want to see
The property address, type and tenure; the price and any valuation you already hold; whether you will occupy it or let it, and on what lease; your last two years of accounts plus current management figures; and the deposit and where it comes from. On an investment purchase, add the tenant and the lease terms, because that is the covenant the lender is buying.
Coverage outside England narrows: 32 lenders cover Scotland and 11 cover Northern Ireland, against 45 overall. Say where the building is in the first conversation. The commercial mortgages guide covers the product mechanics in full.
Start with the building
Property type, price, and whether you will occupy it or let it. That is enough for us to say how many lenders are realistically in play.
Check your optionsFinance arranged for UK limited companies and LLPs.
Sources and method
The sector counts and the rate span are ours, dated above. Everything below is a primary source for something this page relies on but does not own: the regulatory boundary around commercial property lending, the base rate that moves pricing, and the records that let you check a property or a firm.
- FCA, regulated mortgage contracts and the perimeter (MCOB)
- Bank of England, base rate and monetary policy
- HM Land Registry, commercial property records
- RICS, commercial valuation standards
- NACFB, commercial finance broker standards
Related funding
Commercial mortgage broker questions
What does a commercial mortgage broker actually do?▼
It works out which lenders will look at your building before you apply to any of them, which is a bigger job here than in most products because appetite is set by property type. On our panel at September 2026 that runs from 36 lenders for offices down to 7 for churches, and no lender publishes that map. Going direct works when the property is a mainstream office or industrial unit and your accounts are clean. It works badly for anything specialist.
How much deposit will I need?▼
Commonly a quarter to a third. Across our panel the maximum loan-to-value spans 60% to 100% with a median of 75% over 460 products, checked September 2026, so 25% is the sensible planning assumption. The thing that moves it is not usually your accounts but the sector: a short lender list means less competition, and less competition shows up as a bigger deposit before it shows up as a higher rate.
What do commercial mortgages cost?▼
Across our panel the annual rate spans 4.6% to 11.4% with a median around 7.3%, measured at 70% loan-to-value over 402 products and checked September 2026. That is a span across panel products on a stated date rather than a quote, and the ceiling is roughly 2.5 times the floor, which is why an advertised "rates from" figure tells you very little. Arrangement and valuation fees and legal costs sit on top.
Can I borrow more on a property my own business occupies?▼
Usually, yes. An owner-occupied commercial mortgage lets the lender read your trading accounts as well as the building, so it has two sources of comfort rather than one, and owner-occupiers commonly reach a higher loan-to-value than investors on the same property. Professional practices are the clearest example of how far that can go, and are the usual exception to the panel maximum.
Do I need to be an experienced landlord?▼
Not necessarily. 21 of our 45 commercial mortgage lenders will consider a borrower with no landlord experience at September 2026. It narrows the list rather than closing it, and where it applies the tenant's covenant strength and the length of the lease carry more of the decision, because they are what the lender is really relying on.
Who can borrow, and is it regulated?▼
For property-secured lending we work with UK limited companies and LLPs only, for business and commercial purposes. A mortgage over commercial property for business or investment purposes is generally outside the regulated mortgage regime, so the protections that apply to a residential borrower do not apply as of right and the contract is what governs. Anything secured on a property somebody lives in is a different matter and belongs with a regulated mortgage broker.
Is CapExpand FCA regulated?▼
CapExpand Ltd is not directly authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. CapExpand Ltd (FRN 1060885) is an Appointed Representative of White Rose Finance Group Limited, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN 630772). That appointment means White Rose Finance Group Limited is responsible for our credit broking, and both firms appear on the Financial Services Register at register.fca.org.uk. We are a credit broker, not a lender.