Development exit report · H1 2026

London Development Exit Report, H1 2026

Who is lending to developers in 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.

2,057
New development charges, 12 months to June 2026 (+13.2%)
673
Development loans filed as repaid, same 12 months
59.9%
Live development book over 24 months old (60.6% nationally)
5,172
New-build sales, latest settled 12 months (-7.3%)
Matt Lenzie
Written and reviewed by Matt Lenzie Founder & Principal Broker · 25 years arranging development finance · Reviewed September 2026
In short

London's headline number is a change in direction: new development lending rose 13.2% to 2,057 charges. Behind it, development loans filed as repaid rose 12.7% to 673. Of the 8,931 development charges still live in London at 30 June, 59.9% had been running for more than 24 months. 6,978 residential approvals over the latest 12 months (partial coverage, 67%) set up the pipeline that will need refinancing next.

Scorecard

London at a glance

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

SignalLondonChangeBasisDirection
New development charges2,057+13.2%12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months beforeUp
Development charges satisfied (exits filed)673+12.7%12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months before; recent filings provisionalUp
Exit-type lending to developers835-0.9%bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companiesFlat
Live development book over 24 months old59.9%-0.7 ptsat 30 June 2026, compared with 60.6% across England and WalesIn line
New-build sales registered5,172-7.3%settled 12 months (registration lag allowed for) vs the 12 months beforeDown
New developer and property companies20,478+10.6%SIC 41100, 41202, 68100 by registered office; live register onlyUp
Companies House · development lending

Development lending and exits in London

Over the 12 months to 30 June 2026, 1,219 development companies in London gave security to development lenders, 2,057 charges in all. The year before it was 1,817 (+13.2%).

On the other side of the ledger, 673 development loans were filed as repaid: 0.33 repayments per new loan (England and Wales: 0.4). Lending is outrunning exits.

Loans repaid over the year had been outstanding for a median 25.1 months (26.4 the year before).

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.

London: 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)
0200400600800New development charges, 2022 Q1: 255Satisfied, 2022 Q1: 1062022New development charges, 2022 Q2: 244Satisfied, 2022 Q2: 56New development charges, 2022 Q3: 370Satisfied, 2022 Q3: 96New development charges, 2022 Q4: 335Satisfied, 2022 Q4: 112New development charges, 2023 Q1: 269Satisfied, 2023 Q1: 1102023New development charges, 2023 Q2: 292Satisfied, 2023 Q2: 96New development charges, 2023 Q3: 307Satisfied, 2023 Q3: 125New development charges, 2023 Q4: 373Satisfied, 2023 Q4: 121New development charges, 2024 Q1: 357Satisfied, 2024 Q1: 1322024New development charges, 2024 Q2: 374Satisfied, 2024 Q2: 173New development charges, 2024 Q3: 477Satisfied, 2024 Q3: 155New development charges, 2024 Q4: 423Satisfied, 2024 Q4: 144New development charges, 2025 Q1: 439Satisfied, 2025 Q1: 1742025New development charges, 2025 Q2: 478Satisfied, 2025 Q2: 124New development charges, 2025 Q3: 477Satisfied, 2025 Q3: 161New development charges, 2025 Q4: 528Satisfied, 2025 Q4: 128New development charges, 2026 Q1: 542 (censored by registration lag)Satisfied, 2026 Q1: 177 (censored by registration lag)2026New development charges, 2026 Q2: 510 (censored by registration lag)Satisfied, 2026 Q2: 207 (censored by registration lag)

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Companies House · exit-type lending

Bridging and specialist lending to London developers

London saw 835 exit-type charges registered against development companies in the 12 months to June 2026, against 843 a year earlier (-0.9%).

By lender type, specialist and challenger banks led with 424. H1 2026 on its own: 421 (H1 2025: 401).

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.

London: exit-type lending to developers bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companies, rolling four quarters
02505007501,0002022 Q42023 Q42024 Q42026 Q2Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2022 Q4: 725Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q1: 717Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q2: 723Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q3: 707Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q4: 737Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q1: 740Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q2: 764Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q3: 778Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q4: 788Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q1: 803Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q2: 843Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q3: 798Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q4: 815Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2026 Q1: 856Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2026 Q2: 835Charges 835

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Companies House · lender categories

Who is lending in London

Specialist money (bridging, specialist banks, development lenders and funds) accounted for 89.6% of matched property charges in London, compared with 88.4% for England and Wales. The local market leans on specialist capital about as much as the country does.

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
LondonLondon, Specialist and challenger banks: 57.4%57%London, Bridging lenders: 31.8%32%London, High-street banks: 10.4%10%London, Development lenders, funds and other: 0.4%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 5,172 new homes sold in London, compared with 5,582 in the year before. That is 5.7% of the market, against a national 8.3%.

Buyers paid 29.2% more for a new flat than a second-hand one, and 28% more for a new house, on median prices.

Across the whole market, 83,921 homes changed hands in the 12 months to January 2026, down 0.2% 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.

London: new-build sales registered by half-year; faded bars sit inside the registration lag and will rise
02,0004,0006,0008,000New-build sales, 2022 H1: 5,5992022 H1New-build sales, 2022 H2: 6,6412022 H2New-build sales, 2023 H1: 4,1612023 H1New-build sales, 2023 H2: 2,8412023 H2New-build sales, 2024 H1: 2,7912024 H1New-build sales, 2024 H2: 2,7232024 H2New-build sales, 2025 H1: 2,5882025 H1New-build sales, 2025 H2: 928 (censored by registration lag)2025 H2New-build sales, 2026 H1: 57 (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

Between 9 August 2025 and 21 September 2026, 6,978 residential applications were approved (3,901 other relevant, 817 conversion, 724 change of use) and 3,067 awaited a decision.

Where an approval states units (1,591 of them), they add up to at least 7,858 homes.

Not yet covered: Barking And Dagenham, Camden, Hackney, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Islington, Kensington And Chelsea, Merton, Richmond Upon Thames, Waltham Forest.

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. London added 20,478 in the year to June 2026, up 10.6% on the prior year, 7,737 of them developers.

The first six months of 2026 saw 10,388 (10,807 in the same months of 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

London against England and Wales

MeasureLondonChangeEngland and WalesChange
New development charges, 12 months2,057+13.2%9,544+11.7%
Development charges satisfied, 12 months673+12.7%3,785+21.1%
Live development book at 30 June 20268,93141,855
Share of live book over 24 months old59.9%60.6%
Exit-type lending to developers, 12 months835-0.9%5,241+3.4%
New-build sales, settled 12 months5,172-7.3%68,506-6.1%
New-build share of sales, settled 12 months5.7%8.3%
New developer and property companies, 12 months20,478+10.6%61,275+7%
What it means

What this means for developers exiting in London

Reading the signals as a set: new development lending, loan repayments, new companies are up, while new-build sales is down.

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

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 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 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: Barking And Dagenham, Barnet, Bexley, Brent, Bromley, Camden, City Of London, City Of Westminster, Croydon, Ealing, Enfield, Greenwich, Hackney, Hammersmith And Fulham, Haringey, Harrow, Havering, Hillingdon, Hounslow, Islington, Kensington And Chelsea, Kingston Upon Thames, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Newham, Redbridge, Richmond Upon Thames, Southwark, Sutton, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest, Wandsworth (local authority boundaries). Minimum sample 30. 5 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 London: common questions

How many developers borrowed in London last year?

1,219 development companies registered 2,057 charges to development lenders in the 12 months to June 2026, and 673 development loans were filed as repaid over the same period.

How many London schemes are past a normal development term?

Measured by charge age, 59.9% of the live development book in London was older than 24 months at 30 June 2026. The national figure was 60.6%.

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 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.