30
New development charges, 12 months to June 2026 (-18.9%)
Development exit report · H1 2026
Merton Development Exit Report, H1 2026
Who is lending to developers in Merton, 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.
12
Development loans filed as repaid, same 12 months
63.1%
Live development book over 24 months old (60.6% nationally)
19
New-build sales, latest settled 12 months (-54.8%)
Written and reviewed by Matt Lenzie Founder & Principal Broker · 25 years arranging development finance · Reviewed September 2026
In short
Start with this: in the 12 months to June 2026, registered new-build sales dropped 54.8% to 19 over the latest settled year across Merton. Meanwhile development loans filed as repaid dropped 25% to 12. Loan age matters for exits: 63.1% of Merton's live development charges passed the two-year mark by June 2026 (national 60.6%). Planning data for Merton is not yet in our scrape.
Scorecard
Merton at a glance
How each signal moved over the year, measured the same way for every location we report on.
| Signal | Merton | Change | Basis | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New development charges | 30 | -18.9% | 12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months before | Down |
| Development charges satisfied (exits filed) | 12 | -25% | 12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months before; recent filings provisional | Down |
| Exit-type lending to developers | 20 | -20% | bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companies | Down |
| Live development book over 24 months old | 63.1% | +2.5 pts | at 30 June 2026, compared with 60.6% across England and Wales | Above national |
| New-build sales registered | 19 | -54.8% | settled 12 months (registration lag allowed for) vs the 12 months before | Down |
| New developer and property companies | 418 | +17.7% | SIC 41100, 41202, 68100 by registered office; live register only | Up |
Companies House · development lending
Development lending and exits in Merton
The register shows 30 new development charges in Merton across the 12 months to June 2026, down 18.9% on the prior 12 months, spread over 19 borrowers.
On the other side of the ledger, 12 development loans were filed as repaid. That is a repayment ratio of 0.4, at or above the national 0.4, so exits are keeping pace.
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.
New development chargesSatisfied (loan repaid)
Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis
Companies House · exit-type lending
Bridging and specialist lending to Merton developers
The exit and refinance market in Merton registered 20 charges on development companies over the latest year, down 20% from 25.
By lender type, specialist and challenger banks led with 11. H1 2026 on its own: 7 (H1 2025: 15).
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 Merton
Of 399 property charges in Merton we could match to a lender type, 86.0% sat with specialist lenders (national: 88.4%). Little different from the national picture.
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
The settled Land Registry year to July 2025 shows 19 new homes sold in Merton, compared with 42 in the year before. A new-build share of 0.8%; England and Wales ran at 8.3%.
Too few new-build sales of each type to publish a price premium.
Total sales, read over the settled year to January 2026 so late registrations do not distort the change: 2,316 (-0.3%).
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
We do not yet scrape the planning portal for Merton, so this report carries no planning pipeline figures rather than estimates.
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. Merton added 418 in the year to June 2026, up 17.7% on the prior year, 148 of them developers.
The first six months of 2026 saw 204 (202 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
Merton against England and Wales
| Measure | Merton | Change | England and Wales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New development charges, 12 months | 30 | -18.9% | 9,544 | +11.7% |
| Development charges satisfied, 12 months | 12 | -25% | 3,785 | +21.1% |
| Live development book at 30 June 2026 | 168 | 41,855 | ||
| Share of live book over 24 months old | 63.1% | 60.6% | ||
| Exit-type lending to developers, 12 months | 20 | -20% | 5,241 | +3.4% |
| New-build sales, settled 12 months | 19 | -54.8% | 68,506 | -6.1% |
| New-build share of sales, settled 12 months | 0.8% | 8.3% | ||
| New developer and property companies, 12 months | 418 | +17.7% | 61,275 | +7% |
What it means
What this means for developers exiting in Merton
Reading the signals as a set: new companies is up, while new development lending, loan repayments, exit-type lending, new-build sales are down.
Ageing loans mean pressure from development lenders to repay. Refinancing onto exit finance before a facility expires usually costs less than negotiating an extension.
Slower new-build sales stretch the time between completion and the last sale, which is the gap exit finance is designed to cover.
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 Merton 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: Merton (local authority boundaries). Minimum sample 30. 22 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 Merton: common questions
How much development lending is there in Merton?
Development lenders registered 30 new charges in Merton in the 12 months to June 2026 (-18.9% on the year before), taken by 19 companies. It counts loans taken, not their value.
How old are development loans in Merton?
63.1% of the 168 development charges live in Merton 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 Merton?
Send us the scheme, the current facility and the sales position and we will give a view on the exit options and indicative terms.