4
New development charges, 12 months to September 2026 (-69.2%)
Development exit report · Q3 2026
City of London Development Exit Report, Q3 2026
Who is lending to developers in City of London, how many schemes are exiting their development loans, and how quickly new homes are selling. Built from Companies House charges, Land Registry sales and council planning data.
16
Development loans filed as repaid, same 12 months
85.4%
Live development book over 24 months old (61.3% nationally)
13
New-build sales, latest settled 12 months (-80.6%)
In short
City of London's headline number is a change in direction: registered new-build sales declined 80.6% to 13 over the latest settled year. Next largest, new development lending declined 69.2% to 4 charges. 85.4% of live development loans here were over 24 months old at the end of September, 24.1 points above the national share, a direct read on how many schemes are past a normal build term. We do not yet collect planning decisions for City of London, so the pipeline is not measured.
City of London is a small market on the charge register (fewer than 30 new development charges in the year), so percentages built on those charges are suppressed. The counts are published as they stand.
Scorecard
City of London at a glance
How each signal moved over the year, measured the same way for every location we report on.
| Signal | City of London | Change | Basis | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New development charges | 4 | -69.2% | 12 months to September 2026 vs the 12 months before | Down |
| Development charges satisfied (exits filed) | 16 | n/a | 12 months to September 2026 vs the 12 months before | Not published |
| Exit-type lending to developers | 8 | -57.9% | bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companies | Down |
| Live development book over 24 months old | 85.4% | +24.1 pts | at 30 September 2026, compared with 61.3% across England and Wales | Above national |
| New-build sales registered | 13 | -80.6% | settled 12 months (registration lag allowed for) vs the 12 months before | Down |
| New developer and property companies | 127 | -23.5% | SIC 41100, 41202, 68100 by registered office; live register only | Down |
Companies House · development lending
Development lending and exits in City of London
4 borrowers, 4 charges: that is the scale of new development lending in City of London in the year to September 2026, compared with 13 charges a year earlier.
On the other side of the ledger, 16 development loans were filed as repaid. The sample is too small to express as a ratio.
A charge is the security a lender registers at Companies House. It shows that a loan was taken and when it was repaid (satisfied), not how much was lent. A quarter-end is provisional until 30 days after the data cut-off, because filings arrive late.
New development chargesSatisfied (loan repaid)
Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis
Companies House · exit-type lending
Bridging and specialist lending to City of London developers
City of London saw 8 exit-type charges registered against development companies in the 12 months to September 2026, against 19 a year earlier (-57.9%).
Specialist and challenger banks held the largest number, 7. The third quarter of 2026 alone brought 0, against 4 in the same quarter of 2025.
Exit-type lending counts charges registered by bridging lenders, specialist banks and private credit funds against companies whose registered business is developing buildings (SIC 41100 or 41202). It is the market that refinances development debt at completion and funds the sales period.
Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis
Companies House · lender categories
Who is lending in City of London
Specialist money (bridging, specialist banks, development lenders and funds) accounted for 53.7% of matched property charges in City of London, compared with 87.5% for England and Wales. Specialists are 34 points less prominent than nationally.
Lenders are grouped by category from the Construction Capital lender register and never named.
Specialist and challenger banksBridging lendersHigh-street banksDevelopment lenders, funds and other
Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis
Land Registry · sales
How quickly new homes are selling
New-build completions registered in City of London came to 13 over the latest settled year (to September 2025), down 80.6% from 67. That is 7.7% of the market, against a national 8.1%.
Too few new-build sales of each type to publish a price premium.
Across the whole market, 128 homes changed hands in the 12 months to April 2026, down 37.9% on the year before.
Land Registry registers new-build plot sales up to a year after completion, so new-build figures use the latest settled 12 months. Prices are transaction-sample medians, not a like-for-like index.
HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, Construction Capital analysis
Planning · pipeline
The next wave of schemes needing an exit
Planning decisions for City of London are not in our dataset yet. We would rather leave the section empty than estimate it.
Residential applications from council planning portals over each council's latest 12-month window. Unit counts are only stated on some applications, so unit totals are a floor.
Companies House · registrations
New developer companies
New single-purpose companies are where most schemes start. City of London added 127 in the year to September 2026, down 23.5% on the prior year, 38 of them developers.
Year on year: 21 in the third quarter of 2026, 28 a year before.
Companies registered with SIC 41100, 41202 or 68100, placed by registered office. The register lists live companies only, so earlier periods lose companies since dissolved.
Benchmark
City of London against England and Wales
| Measure | City of London | Change | England and Wales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New development charges, 12 months | 4 | -69.2% | 9,562 | +11.3% |
| Development charges satisfied, 12 months | 16 | n/a | 3,908 | +21.2% |
| Live development book at 30 September 2026 | 89 | 42,944 | ||
| Share of live book over 24 months old | 85.4% | 61.3% | ||
| Exit-type lending to developers, 12 months | 8 | -57.9% | 5,002 | -0.4% |
| New-build sales, settled 12 months | 13 | -80.6% | 67,091 | -7.1% |
| New-build share of sales, settled 12 months | 7.7% | 8.1% | ||
| New developer and property companies, 12 months | 127 | -23.5% | 58,644 | -5.1% |
What it means
What this means for developers exiting in City of London
Up: none. Down: new development lending, exit-type lending, new-build sales, new companies.
An older-than-average book is the clearest local sign of schemes overrunning. Developers in that position usually refinance onto an exit facility or sell at a discount to clear senior debt.
Fewer new-build sales being registered means stock is taking longer to clear, so a sales-period facility sized to the unsold units is worth pricing early.
Terms depend on the scheme, the sales evidence and the developer, and no finance is guaranteed. We are a finance broker, not a lender. Development exit finance for companies is unregulated lending.
Read how a development exit loan is sized, or compare the national picture in the Development Exit Demand Tracker. Local market detail sits on our development exit finance in City of London page.
Methodology and sources
Companies House charges (security instruments, not loans: no amounts, LTVs or rates). Development lending = charges held by specialist development lenders, or by development-active mixed lenders where the borrower carries SIC 41100/41202, the charge wording names development land or a site, or the borrower is a newly incorporated (within 12 months) SIC 68100 company with no buy-to-let SIC (the same rule as the national Development Exit Demand Tracker). Exit-type lending to developers = charges registered by bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit (funder) lenders against companies carrying SIC 41100/41202. A charge is placed by its charged-property postcode, or failing that the borrower's registered office. 'Satisfied' is the filed repayment of a charge: the exit. Exit refinance events are new charges registered on the same title after a specialist development lender's charge was repaid or released (charge stacks, same-group and same-company pairs excluded). Satisfactions are filed late, so a quarter-end stays provisional until 30 days after the data cut-off. Lender categories come from the Construction Capital lender register; lenders are never named.
Land Registry registers new-build plot sales up to a year after completion, so new-build counts, shares and premiums are read only over the settled 12 months ending a year before the data vintage (settled12m) and compared with the 12 months before that. New-build figures in the most recent windows are incomplete and are not used for any headline. HMLR Price Paid, standard (category A) residential sales (detached, semi, terraced, flat) in the location's local authorities. New-build premium compares the median new-build price with the median existing-stock price within flats and within houses; it is a transaction-sample median, not a constant-quality index. Registrations lag completions by weeks to months, so the most recent months (and new-build plots especially) understate final counts; trailing-12-month figures are the steadier read.
Residential planning applications (new build, conversion, prior approval, mixed use, HMO, demolition and rebuild) from the Construction Capital council-portal scrapes, one record set per authority, over each council's rolling 12-month scrape window. Unit counts are stated only on some applications, so totals undercount. Councils not yet scraped are listed as missing, never estimated.
New companies with SIC 41100, 41202 or 68100 by registered-office postcode. The register snapshot holds live companies only, so earlier windows lose companies since dissolved; read year-on-year change as indicative.
Data vintage: charges registered to 2026-10-30, satisfactions filed to 2026-11-02, company register snapshot 2026-11-01, Land Registry transactions to 2026-09-30. Area covered: City Of London (local authority boundaries). Minimum sample 30. 37 cuts suppressed for sample size.
Sources: Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis; HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, Construction Capital analysis; Council planning portals, Construction Capital planning scrape. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Companies House data is public and reused under the Open Government Licence.
You are welcome to cite or chart these figures with a link to this page.
FAQ
Development exit in City of London: common questions
How much development lending is there in City of London?
Development lenders registered 4 new charges in City of London in the 12 months to September 2026 (-69.2% on the year before), taken by 4 companies. It counts loans taken, not their value.
How many City of London schemes are past a normal development term?
Measured by charge age, 85.4% of the live development book in City of London was older than 24 months at 30 September 2026. The national figure was 61.3%.
What is development exit finance?
A short-term loan taken at or near practical completion. It repays the development lender and funds the sales or letting period, often at a lower rate than the development loan it replaces, and can release equity for the next scheme. Our development exit finance page covers how it is sized and priced.
Where does this data come from?
Companies House charges and company registrations, HM Land Registry Price Paid Data and council planning portals, all analysed by Construction Capital. Figures below the minimum sample of 30 are suppressed, and lenders are grouped into categories rather than named.
More reports
Other reports in London
Completing a scheme in City of London?
Send us the scheme, the current facility and the sales position and we will give a view on the exit options and indicative terms.