Development exit report · H1 2026

Devon Development Exit Report, H1 2026

Who is lending to developers in Devon, 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.

155
New development charges, 12 months to June 2026 (+29.2%)
62
Development loans filed as repaid, same 12 months
59.5%
Live development book over 24 months old (60.6% nationally)
1,652
New-build sales, latest settled 12 months (+1.8%)
Matt Lenzie
Written and reviewed by Matt Lenzie Founder & Principal Broker · 25 years arranging development finance · Reviewed September 2026
In short

In Devon, development loans filed as repaid increased 44.2% to 62, the sharpest change of any signal we track for the county. Next largest, new development lending increased 29.2% to 155 charges. 59.5% of live development loans here were over 24 months old at the end of June, close to the national share, a direct read on how many schemes are past a normal build term. 2,166 residential approvals over the latest 12 months (partial coverage, 70%) set up the pipeline that will need refinancing next.

Scorecard

Devon at a glance

How each signal moved over the year, measured the same way for every location we report on.

SignalDevonChangeBasisDirection
New development charges155+29.2%12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months beforeUp
Development charges satisfied (exits filed)62+44.2%12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months before; recent filings provisionalUp
Exit-type lending to developers95+4.4%bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companiesFlat
Live development book over 24 months old59.5%-1.1 ptsat 30 June 2026, compared with 60.6% across England and WalesIn line
New-build sales registered1,652+1.8%settled 12 months (registration lag allowed for) vs the 12 months beforeFlat
New developer and property companies617+20.7%SIC 41100, 41202, 68100 by registered office; live register onlyUp
Companies House · development lending

Development lending and exits in Devon

Over the 12 months to 30 June 2026, 80 development companies in Devon gave security to development lenders, 155 charges in all. The year before it was 120 (+29.2%).

Repayments ran at 62 over the same 12 months: 0.4 repayments per new loan (England and Wales: 0.4). Exits are keeping up with new lending.

The median development loan repaid in the year ran 40.9 months from registration to repayment, against 34.8 months a year earlier.

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. Repayments are filed late, so the latest six months are provisional.

Devon: development charges registered and satisfied by quarter, 2022 Q1 to 2026 Q2; faded bars are provisional because repayments are filed late
New development chargesSatisfied (loan repaid)
020406080New development charges, 2022 Q1: 15Satisfied, 2022 Q1: 92022New development charges, 2022 Q2: 22Satisfied, 2022 Q2: 6New development charges, 2022 Q3: 26Satisfied, 2022 Q3: 11New development charges, 2022 Q4: 39Satisfied, 2022 Q4: 15New development charges, 2023 Q1: 13Satisfied, 2023 Q1: 252023New development charges, 2023 Q2: 20Satisfied, 2023 Q2: 21New development charges, 2023 Q3: 12Satisfied, 2023 Q3: 9New development charges, 2023 Q4: 22Satisfied, 2023 Q4: 14New development charges, 2024 Q1: 27Satisfied, 2024 Q1: 102024New development charges, 2024 Q2: 24Satisfied, 2024 Q2: 10New development charges, 2024 Q3: 31Satisfied, 2024 Q3: 9New development charges, 2024 Q4: 36Satisfied, 2024 Q4: 11New development charges, 2025 Q1: 26Satisfied, 2025 Q1: 62025New development charges, 2025 Q2: 27Satisfied, 2025 Q2: 17New development charges, 2025 Q3: 42Satisfied, 2025 Q3: 9New development charges, 2025 Q4: 47Satisfied, 2025 Q4: 9New development charges, 2026 Q1: 28 (censored by registration lag)Satisfied, 2026 Q1: 24 (censored by registration lag)2026New development charges, 2026 Q2: 38 (censored by registration lag)Satisfied, 2026 Q2: 20 (censored by registration lag)

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Companies House · exit-type lending

Bridging and specialist lending to Devon developers

Bridging lenders, specialist banks and funds took 95 charges over Devon development companies in the year to June 2026 (+4.4% on the 91 of the year before).

Most came from specialist and challenger banks (48). Comparing half-years, 60 in H1 2026 against 39 in H1 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.

Devon: exit-type lending to developers bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companies, rolling four quarters
02550751002022 Q42023 Q42024 Q42026 Q2Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2022 Q4: 63Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q1: 66Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q2: 63Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q3: 56Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q4: 47Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q1: 63Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q2: 66Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q3: 82Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q4: 94Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q1: 77Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q2: 91Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q3: 93Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q4: 74Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2026 Q1: 87Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2026 Q2: 95Charges 95

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Companies House · lender categories

Who is lending in Devon

Of 1,613 property charges in Devon we could match to a lender type, 81.9% sat with specialist lenders (national: 88.4%). Mainstream banks do relatively more here: specialists are 6 points below the national share.

Lenders are grouped by category from the Construction Capital lender register and never named.

Who holds the charges: lender categories share of register-matched property charges, 12 months to June 2026
Specialist and challenger banksBridging lendersHigh-street banksDevelopment lenders, funds and other
DevonDevon, Specialist and challenger banks: 58.0%58%Devon, Bridging lenders: 22.9%23%Devon, High-street banks: 18.1%18%Devon, Development lenders, funds and other: 1.0%E and WE and W, Specialist and challenger banks: 60.5%61%E and W, Bridging lenders: 27.5%28%E and W, High-street banks: 11.5%12%E and W, Development lenders, funds and other: 0.5%

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Land Registry · sales

How quickly new homes are selling

The settled Land Registry year to July 2025 shows 1,652 new homes sold in Devon, compared with 1,623 in the year before. A new-build share of 8.5%; England and Wales ran at 8.3%.

The new-build premium was 58.2% on flats (£250,000 median) and 20.2% on houses (£354,473).

All residential sales totalled 18,767 in the settled 12 months to January 2026 (+2.3% 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.

Devon: new-build sales registered by half-year; faded bars sit inside the registration lag and will rise
05001,0001,5002,000New-build sales, 2022 H1: 1,1432022 H1New-build sales, 2022 H2: 1,4452022 H2New-build sales, 2023 H1: 8312023 H1New-build sales, 2023 H2: 8712023 H2New-build sales, 2024 H1: 7422024 H1New-build sales, 2024 H2: 9132024 H2New-build sales, 2025 H1: 7442025 H1New-build sales, 2025 H2: 326 (censored by registration lag)2025 H2New-build sales, 2026 H1: 13 (censored by registration lag)2026 H1

HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, Construction Capital analysis

Planning · pipeline

The next wave of schemes needing an exit

East Devon District Council, Exeter City Council, Mid Devon District Council, North Devon Council, Plymouth City Council, Teignbridge District Council, Torbay Council approved 2,166 residential applications between 20 September 2025 and 21 September 2026, with 821 still pending. By type: 1,308 other relevant, 301 conversion, 257 new build.

Where an approval states units (455 of them), they add up to at least 3,347 homes.

Not yet covered: South Hams, Torridge, West Devon.

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.

Largest approved schemes (stated units)UnitsTypeDecided
Hill Barton Farm Hill Barton Road Exeter274other residential
Land West Of Houghton Barton Newton Abbot Devon250other residential
Land North Of Old Bideford Road Barnstaple220new build2025-10-17
Land At Ngr 301536 107900 North Of Tiverton Road Cullompton Devon200other residential2026-04-23
Land At South West Exeter Ngr 292831 88702 Matford Devon158other residential
Companies House · registrations

New developer companies

New single-purpose companies are where most schemes start. Devon added 617 in the year to June 2026, up 20.7% on the prior year, 332 of them developers.

H1 2026 brought 323 against 285 in H1 2025.

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

Devon against England and Wales

MeasureDevonChangeEngland and WalesChange
New development charges, 12 months155+29.2%9,544+11.7%
Development charges satisfied, 12 months62+44.2%3,785+21.1%
Live development book at 30 June 202664241,855
Share of live book over 24 months old59.5%60.6%
Exit-type lending to developers, 12 months95+4.4%5,241+3.4%
New-build sales, settled 12 months1,652+1.8%68,506-6.1%
New-build share of sales, settled 12 months8.5%8.3%
New developer and property companies, 12 months617+20.7%61,275+7%
What it means

What this means for developers exiting in Devon

Reading the signals as a set: new development lending, loan repayments, new companies are up.

Nothing unusual in the age of local loans, so each scheme's sales evidence will decide whether exit finance helps.

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 Devon 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 the most recent six months are provisional and will rise. 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 2026-07-31, satisfactions filed to 2026-08-03, company register snapshot 2026-08-01, Land Registry transactions to 2026-07-31. Area covered: East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon, North Devon, South Hams, Teignbridge, Torridge, West Devon, City Of Plymouth, Torbay (local authority boundaries). Minimum sample 30. 7 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 Devon: common questions

How many developers borrowed in Devon last year?

80 development companies registered 155 charges to development lenders in the 12 months to June 2026, and 62 development loans were filed as repaid over the same period.

How old are development loans in Devon?

59.5% of the 642 development charges live in Devon at the end of June 2026 had been in place for over two years, against 60.6% nationally.

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.

Completing a scheme in Devon?

Send us the scheme, the current facility and the sales position and we will give a view on the exit options and indicative terms.