Development exit report · H1 2026

Sussex Development Exit Report, H1 2026

Who is lending to developers in Sussex, 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.

236
New development charges, 12 months to June 2026 (+22.3%)
88
Development loans filed as repaid, same 12 months
65.3%
Live development book over 24 months old (60.6% nationally)
1,588
New-build sales, latest settled 12 months (-21.2%)
Matt Lenzie
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, development loans filed as repaid climbed 35.4% to 88 across Sussex. Next largest, new development lending climbed 22.3% to 236 charges. The age of the local development book stands out: 65.3% of live charges are older than two years, against 60.6% for England and Wales. On the planning side, 747 residential applications were approved in the latest 12-month window across the 62% of the county we cover.

Scorecard

Sussex at a glance

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

SignalSussexChangeBasisDirection
New development charges236+22.3%12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months beforeUp
Development charges satisfied (exits filed)88+35.4%12 months to June 2026 vs the 12 months before; recent filings provisionalUp
Exit-type lending to developers129+6.6%bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companiesUp
Live development book over 24 months old65.3%+4.7 ptsat 30 June 2026, compared with 60.6% across England and WalesAbove national
New-build sales registered1,588-21.2%settled 12 months (registration lag allowed for) vs the 12 months beforeDown
New developer and property companies1,162+1.7%SIC 41100, 41202, 68100 by registered office; live register onlyFlat
Companies House · development lending

Development lending and exits in Sussex

The register shows 236 new development charges in Sussex across the 12 months to June 2026, up 22.3% on the prior 12 months, spread over 122 borrowers.

Set against that, 88 development charges were satisfied (repaid) in the same year: 0.37 repayments per new loan (England and Wales: 0.4). Lending is outrunning exits.

The median development loan repaid in the year ran 31 months from registration to repayment, against 25 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.

Sussex: 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: 20Satisfied, 2022 Q1: 202022New development charges, 2022 Q2: 44Satisfied, 2022 Q2: 16New development charges, 2022 Q3: 45Satisfied, 2022 Q3: 10New development charges, 2022 Q4: 33Satisfied, 2022 Q4: 16New development charges, 2023 Q1: 30Satisfied, 2023 Q1: 252023New development charges, 2023 Q2: 66Satisfied, 2023 Q2: 27New development charges, 2023 Q3: 49Satisfied, 2023 Q3: 19New development charges, 2023 Q4: 49Satisfied, 2023 Q4: 18New development charges, 2024 Q1: 58Satisfied, 2024 Q1: 72024New development charges, 2024 Q2: 44Satisfied, 2024 Q2: 22New development charges, 2024 Q3: 30Satisfied, 2024 Q3: 15New development charges, 2024 Q4: 68Satisfied, 2024 Q4: 13New development charges, 2025 Q1: 50Satisfied, 2025 Q1: 112025New development charges, 2025 Q2: 45Satisfied, 2025 Q2: 26New development charges, 2025 Q3: 36Satisfied, 2025 Q3: 25New development charges, 2025 Q4: 63Satisfied, 2025 Q4: 22New development charges, 2026 Q1: 58 (censored by registration lag)Satisfied, 2026 Q1: 19 (censored by registration lag)2026New development charges, 2026 Q2: 79 (censored by registration lag)Satisfied, 2026 Q2: 22 (censored by registration lag)

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Companies House · exit-type lending

Bridging and specialist lending to Sussex developers

Sussex saw 129 exit-type charges registered against development companies in the 12 months to June 2026, against 121 a year earlier (+6.6%).

Specialist and challenger banks held the largest number, 71. The first half of 2026 alone brought 66, against 69 in the first half 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.

Sussex: exit-type lending to developers bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companies, rolling four quarters
0501001502002022 Q42023 Q42024 Q42026 Q2Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2022 Q4: 114Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q1: 113Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q2: 111Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q3: 90Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2023 Q4: 114Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q1: 141Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q2: 138Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q3: 136Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2024 Q4: 120Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q1: 122Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q2: 121Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q3: 124Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2025 Q4: 132Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2026 Q1: 123Exit-type charges, rolling 4Q, 2026 Q2: 129Charges 129

Companies House charge register, Construction Capital analysis

Companies House · lender categories

Who is lending in Sussex

Specialist money (bridging, specialist banks, development lenders and funds) accounted for 84.3% of matched property charges in Sussex, compared with 88.4% for England and Wales. That 4 point gap suggests more of the market is still funded by mainstream banks.

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
SussexSussex, Specialist and challenger banks: 57.5%58%Sussex, Bridging lenders: 26.3%26%Sussex, High-street banks: 15.6%16%Sussex, Development lenders, funds and other: 0.6%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

New-build completions registered in Sussex came to 1,588 over the latest settled year (to July 2025), down 21.2% from 2,016. That is 5.9% of the market, against a national 8.3%.

New-build flats sold at a median £302,000, 30.7% above existing flats; new-build houses at £455,000, 8.3% above existing houses.

Total sales, read over the settled year to January 2026 so late registrations do not distort the change: 25,799 (+1.7%).

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.

Sussex: 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: 1,5932022 H1New-build sales, 2022 H2: 1,6872022 H2New-build sales, 2023 H1: 1,1042023 H1New-build sales, 2023 H2: 1,1142023 H2New-build sales, 2024 H1: 9192024 H1New-build sales, 2024 H2: 9192024 H2New-build sales, 2025 H1: 7302025 H1New-build sales, 2025 H2: 327 (censored by registration lag)2025 H2New-build sales, 2026 H1: 10 (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 20 September 2025 and 21 September 2026, 747 residential applications were approved (245 other relevant, 208 new build, 143 conversion) and 370 awaited a decision.

Stated unit counts total 4,162 homes across 282 approvals, a floor rather than the full figure.

Not yet covered: Rother, Wealden, Arun, Crawley, Brighton And Hove.

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

Company formation is an early pipeline signal: 1,162 new property and development companies in Sussex over the latest year, 582 registered as developers (SIC 41100 or 41202).

Half-year to half-year: 584 in the first half of 2026, 637 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

Sussex against England and Wales

MeasureSussexChangeEngland and WalesChange
New development charges, 12 months236+22.3%9,544+11.7%
Development charges satisfied, 12 months88+35.4%3,785+21.1%
Live development book at 30 June 20261,17741,855
Share of live book over 24 months old65.3%60.6%
Exit-type lending to developers, 12 months129+6.6%5,241+3.4%
New-build sales, settled 12 months1,588-21.2%68,506-6.1%
New-build share of sales, settled 12 months5.9%8.3%
New developer and property companies, 12 months1,162+1.7%61,275+7%
What it means

What this means for developers exiting in Sussex

Up: new development lending, loan repayments, exit-type lending. Down: new-build sales.

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 Sussex 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: Eastbourne, Hastings, Lewes, Rother, Wealden, Adur, Arun, Chichester, Crawley, Horsham, Mid Sussex, Worthing, Brighton And Hove (local authority boundaries). Minimum sample 30. 6 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 Sussex: common questions

How much development lending is there in Sussex?

Development lenders registered 236 new charges in Sussex in the 12 months to June 2026 (+22.3% on the year before), taken by 122 companies. It counts loans taken, not their value.

How many Sussex schemes are past a normal development term?

Measured by charge age, 65.3% of the live development book in Sussex 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 Sussex?

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