Every borrower is told the same thing: that the market is competitive and the job is to find the best rate. For a straightforward purchase on a standard property with clean income, that is broadly true — and you probably do not need us for it.
For everything else, the question is not what does it cost. It is who will lend at all. That is a different question, it is answered with a different set of tools, and it is the reason specialist brokers exist. This page sets out the map we work from.
The five types of lender, and how each one decides
The UK lending market splits far less by rate than by two things: how a decision actually gets made — an algorithm or a human — and how the lender is funded and regulated, which sets what risk it can take. Get those two right and the rate follows. Get them wrong and there is no rate, because there is no offer.
| Type | Examples in the market | Best suited to | How the decision is made |
|---|---|---|---|
| High-street banks | Lloyds/Halifax, NatWest, Barclays, Santander, HSBC | Clean, standard cases at the sharpest rates | Automated credit-scoring. No human sees a case that falls outside the model |
| Building societies & mutuals | Nationwide, Coventry, Yorkshire/Accord, Skipton, Leeds, Principality, and smaller regionals | Good cases that do not fit a box — self-employed, later-life, self-build, thin file, non-standard construction | Manual underwriting. Referral to a named underwriter who can apply judgement |
| Challenger & specialist banks | Aldermore, Paragon, Shawbrook, OakNorth, Together, Precise, Vida, The Mortgage Lender, Pepper, Kensington | Specialist buy-to-let, HMOs, limited company structures, adverse credit, bridging, commercial | Criteria-led. Published criteria rather than a score — “beyond the score” |
| Private banks | Coutts, Weatherbys, Arbuthnot, Investec, Handelsbanken | High- and ultra-high-net-worth, large loans, interest-only, asset-backed wealth, complex or international income | Bespoke and relationship-priced. The whole balance sheet, argued as a narrative |
| Non-bank lenders | Bridging and development lenders; second-charge and later-life specialists | Short-term, transitional and development funding; second charges | Product-specific and fast. Funded by private capital, so bolder on niche risk |
Named lenders above are examples of each type in the UK market, drawn from UK Finance, the Building Societies Association and lender corporate sources. They illustrate how the market is structured; they are not a statement of any individual lender’s current appetite, and criteria and ownership change. We are not tied to any lender.
The fault line that predicts most of it
Beneath all five types runs one structural split, and a single question usually predicts how a lender will behave: does this lender take deposits?
- Banks and building societies are deposit-takers. They are dual-regulated — the Prudential Regulation Authority for safety, soundness and capital, the FCA for conduct. Retail deposits are the cheapest funding there is, but capital rules push them towards standardised, lower-risk lending.
- Non-bank lenders do not take deposits. They are FCA-regulated for conduct but sit outside the deposit-taker capital regime, and fund from wholesale or private capital. That is more expensive — and considerably more flexible, faster, and willing to price risk a bank cannot hold.
So a deposit-taker implies cheaper, steadier and more constrained. A non-bank implies pricier, quicker and more willing. Neither is better. They are answers to different questions, and matching the case to the right one is most of the work.
Why funding, not appetite, sets the limits
Lenders do not simply raise cash and lend it out. They earn the margin between what their assets return and what their liabilities cost — and the mix of funding a lender uses governs how it can react when rates move.
| Funding source | Who relies on it | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Retail deposits | Banks and building societies | Cheapest and most stable. Societies must fund at least half their lending from members by law |
| Wholesale funding and securitisation | Specialist and non-bank lenders | Books are packaged and sold to investors, which frees capital and serves niches — but pricing is more rate-volatile |
| Private capital and funds | Bridging and development lenders | Family offices, private equity and institutional money. The most flexible on structure, the most expensive |
This is also the honest answer to a question we are asked constantly: why did that fixed rate disappear when the Bank of England had not moved? Lenders hedge fixed-rate lending with swaps, priced off expectations of future rates rather than today’s Base Rate. When the funding behind a product runs out at a given price, the lender pulls it or sells at a loss. Those leaning hardest on wholesale funding pull fastest. Nothing about your case changed — the funding did.
The lenders you cannot reach on your own
Roughly three-quarters of buy-to-let lenders distribute only through intermediaries. It is a deliberate model: rather than run an expensive direct-to-consumer operation, a specialist lender relies on brokers to pre-qualify complex cases and present them properly.
The consequence matters more than it sounds. Those lenders are structurally invisible to someone going direct or using a comparison site. Not harder to find — absent. A comparison table cannot show you a lender that does not sell to the public, and for specialist cases that is frequently where the answer was.
How we actually reach a decision-maker
- Criteria sourcing, not rate sourcing. Rate-sourcing systems answer “what is cheapest”. Criteria systems answer “who will lend at all”. For anything complex we start with the second and let price follow.
- Business development managers. A BDM works for the lender, owns the broker relationship, and is the person who gets a marginal case actually looked at by an underwriter rather than bounced by a system. This is the human channel, and it is built over years.
- Packagers and clubs. Packagers pre-package specialist and bridging cases to a lender’s criteria and reach lenders not otherwise directly accessible. Mortgage clubs pool broker volume for panel access. Both widen the field beyond what any single firm could reach alone.
How we are paid, stated plainly
The lender pays the broker a procuration fee on completion, calculated as a percentage of the loan. You do not pay it. Across the market, gross fees are broadly indicative at around 0.35–0.40% on mainstream residential, 0.40–0.55% on buy-to-let, and higher on specialist, bridging and semi-commercial work; product transfers pay considerably less. Where we charge a separate client fee, it is disclosed to you in writing before you commit to anything.
We are setting this out because you are entitled to know it. Under the FCA’s Consumer Duty, the procuration fee and any client fee must together bear a reasonable relationship to the benefit you actually receive, and commission must be disclosed where it could affect impartiality. Placement runs across 135+ lenders — high street, specialist, challenger and private banks — and we are not tied to any of them.
Procuration-fee ranges are indicative market figures and vary by lender, product and distribution route. Your own case will be quoted specifically.
What this means for your case
- Clean and standard → a high-street bank, and the best rate on the board.
- Good but outside the box → a building society, where a human can apply judgement.
- Specialist buy-to-let, HMO, limited company, adverse → a challenger or specialist bank.
- Substantial wealth, complex or international income → a private bank.
- Short-term, transitional or development → a non-bank lender.
Most declines we are asked to rescue were never really declines of the borrower. They were cases presented to a lender whose model was never going to say yes. If you would like a view on which part of this map your case sits in, that conversation costs nothing.
Common questions
Why does it matter which type of lender I approach?
Because the decision is made in completely different ways. A high-street bank runs your case through an automated credit-scoring engine, so a case that falls outside the model is declined without a human ever seeing it. A building society will refer the same case to a real underwriter who can apply judgement. A challenger or specialist bank underwrites to published criteria rather than a score. A private bank prices the relationship and the whole balance sheet. Approaching the wrong type is not a question of paying a slightly higher rate — it is usually the difference between a yes and a no.
What is the difference between rate sourcing and criteria sourcing?
Product sourcing systems answer the question ‘what is the cheapest rate available?’. Criteria sourcing systems answer ‘which lenders will consider this case at all?’. For a straightforward case the two converge. For anything complex — an HMO, a limited company structure, foreign income, a short lease, an unusual construction, a portfolio — the cheapest headline rate is frequently offered by a lender who will decline the case. Specialist broker value sits almost entirely in the second question.
Are there lenders I cannot approach directly?
Yes, and they are often the ones you most need. Roughly three-quarters of buy-to-let lenders distribute only through intermediaries. They rely on brokers to pre-qualify complex cases rather than run a costly direct-to-consumer operation, which means they are effectively invisible to someone going direct or using a comparison site. That is a structural feature of the market, not a marketing claim.
Why do fixed rates change when the Bank of England has not moved?
Lenders hedge fixed-rate lending using swaps, which are priced off market expectations of future rates rather than today’s Base Rate. When swap rates move, fixed-rate pricing moves with them. Once the funding behind a particular fixed-rate product is exhausted, the lender either withdraws it or sells at a loss — which is why products get pulled at short notice. Lenders who depend more heavily on wholesale funding tend to pull products fastest.
How does a broker get paid, and does that affect the advice?
The lender pays the broker a procuration fee on completion, calculated as a percentage of the loan. Gross fees are broadly indicative at around 0.35–0.40% on mainstream residential, 0.40–0.55% on buy-to-let, and higher on specialist, bridging and semi-commercial cases; product transfers pay considerably less. Any separate client fee is on top and is disclosed to you. Under the FCA’s Consumer Duty, the total of the procuration fee and any client fee must bear a reasonable relationship to the benefit you receive, and commission must be disclosed where it could affect impartiality — before you commit.
Propertyze is a trading style of City Finance Brokers Ltd, authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Most buy-to-let and investment lending, and most bridging finance, is not regulated by the FCA; some cases, such as certain family or consumer buy-to-lets, can be regulated — we will tell you which applies to you. Figures on this page are indicative market data, point-in-time, and should not be relied on as an offer of finance.
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