Commercial mortgages in Nottingham: buying or refinancing the building a company trades from

A common commercial mortgage case in Nottingham is a trading company that has rented its unit, its shop or its office for years and now has the chance to buy it. The other is a company buying a building to let. This page explains how each is read, what the city's business register says about the premises being financed, and the steps from offer to completion. CapExpand is a broker based at Pure Offices in Annesley. We have access to a range of UK commercial finance lenders through our principal, White Rose Finance Group Limited. The lender makes every credit decision. Think carefully before borrowing. Property or other assets offered as security may be at risk if you cannot keep up repayments.

What a commercial mortgage is

A commercial mortgage is a loan over a term of years secured by a first legal charge over a property, registered at the Land Registry against the title and at Companies House against the company under Part 25 of the Companies Act 2006. The company repays in monthly instalments of capital and interest, or interest only with the capital repaid at the end where the lender offers it. If the loan is not repaid the lender can take possession of the property and sell it. Through CapExpand the borrower is a limited company or an LLP, and the property is one the company trades from or lets to others, never one its directors live in.

Owner-occupied or investment

Owner-occupied

The company buys or refinances the building it trades from. The lender's source of repayment is the company's own profits, so it reads the filed accounts and the bank statements the way a term lender would, and then reads the building: its use, its condition, and what it would fetch if it had to be sold with the business gone. Industrial units, workshops, shops, offices and surgeries are all owner-occupied cases.

Commercial investment

The company buys a building to let. The lender's source of repayment is the rent, so it reads the lease: its length, the break clauses, the rent review pattern, and who the tenant is and how they would be replaced. The company's own accounts come second. Residential property held by a company and let to others is read in the same way and sits with the limited company buy-to-let page. Where a building is partly occupied by the company and partly let, the lender decides which it is by the majority use, measured by floor area or by value, and reads it accordingly.

What the lender reads

The property first: a valuation by a surveyor the lender instructs, which sets the loan against the value rather than the price; the title, for anything that restricts use or sale; the planning use; and the condition, with a structural survey where the surveyor asks for one. Then the covenant, which is the lender's word for the strength of whoever will pay: the company's accounts on an owner-occupied case, the tenant and the lease on an investment case. Then the directors, their experience and their guarantees. Loan-to-value, the loan expressed as a percentage of the valuation, is the figure each lender publishes a maximum for, by property type, and it is where a deposit comes from.

Nottingham, from the register

Nottingham had 9,580 VAT or PAYE registered enterprises in March 2025, inside a Nottinghamshire total of 27,330 and a Derbyshire total of 29,410 (ONS, UK business: activity, size and location 2025, via Nomis dataset NM_142_1, read 8 September 2026). The premises those enterprises trade from are the subject of this page: the 1,635 wholesale and retail businesses in shops and warehouses, the 980 construction firms in yards and units, the 1,395 professional firms in offices from the Lace Market outwards, the 775 in accommodation and food in bars, restaurants and hotels, and the 600 in health in surgeries and clinics.

The British Business Bank's English regions factsheet for 2025 counted 6,579 SME loan and overdraft facilities approved in the East Midlands in 2024, worth £892m, and the Bank of England's Agents' summary for July 2026 said credit conditions remained broadly unchanged. The business funding in Nottingham page sets out the wider picture; asset finance and acquisition finance in Nottingham each have a page of their own.

Steps to completion

1. The property and the purpose. The address, the price or the refinance amount, the use, and whether the company will occupy it or let it. For a purchase, the heads of terms with the seller.
2. The case is checked against published criteria. We read the property type, the loan-to-value, the company and the directors against what each lender states it will lend on, and set out what each one offers, side by side. You decide where it goes.
3. Decision in principle and valuation. The lender issues an indicative decision and instructs its surveyor. The valuation fee is payable at this stage whether or not the loan completes.
4. Offer and legal work. On a satisfactory valuation the lender issues a formal offer. Its solicitors and the company's solicitors deal with the title, the searches, the lease where there is one, and the security documents.
5. Completion and registration. The loan is drawn to the company's solicitor, the purchase completes, and the charge is registered at the Land Registry and at Companies House within the 21 days the Companies Act 2006 allows.

How the cost is expressed

A commercial mortgage is priced as an interest rate, fixed for a period or variable over a reference rate such as Bank Rate, which the Bank of England has held at 3.75% since 18 December 2025, with an arrangement fee, the valuation fee, the lender's legal costs and any early repayment charge within a fixed period. The term runs for years rather than months and moves with the use of the property and the covenant. Each lender publishes its own, and they change; we show the costs provided by the lender so you can compare them. The commercial mortgages page and the commercial mortgage broker page go further.

What a lender asks for

The last 2 years of filed accounts and current management figures; the last 3 months of bank statements or an Open Banking connection; the property details with the title number, the price or valuation and the planning use; on an investment case the lease and the tenant's accounts; on a refinance the existing mortgage statement; the directors' details and a statement of their assets and liabilities; and the source of the deposit.

Enquiring does not affect your credit score. If you apply to a lender, it runs its own credit search, which may be recorded on your file. We arrange finance only once a business has traded for 3 months, for amounts from £10,000. For property-secured lending we work with UK limited companies and LLPs only, for business and commercial purposes. CapExpand Ltd is a commercial finance broker based in Annesley, Nottinghamshire, company number 14433858.

Sources

1. ONS, UK business: activity, size and location 2025 (24 September 2025), via Nomis dataset NM_142_1, read 8 September 2026
2. British Business Bank, English regions factsheets 2025 (PDF)
3. Bank of England, Agents' summary of business conditions, July 2026
4. Bank of England, Bank Rate (3.75% since 18 December 2025)
5. Companies Act 2006, Part 25: company charges
6. Companies House, CapExpand Ltd 14433858