23
New development charges, 12 months to September 2026 (-28.1%)
Development exit report · Q3 2026
Tower Hamlets Development Exit Report, Q3 2026
Who is lending to developers in Tower Hamlets, 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.
9
Development loans filed as repaid, same 12 months
74.5%
Live development book over 24 months old (61.3% nationally)
628
New-build sales, latest settled 12 months (+9%)
In short
The biggest move in Tower Hamlets over the year to September 2026: development loans filed as repaid slipped 67.9% to 9. Behind it, new development lending slipped 28.1% to 23 charges. Loan age matters for exits: 74.5% of Tower Hamlets's live development charges passed the two-year mark by September 2026 (national 61.3%). 73 residential approvals over the latest 12 months set up the pipeline that will need refinancing next.
Tower Hamlets 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
Tower Hamlets at a glance
How each signal moved over the year, measured the same way for every location we report on.
| Signal | Tower Hamlets | Change | Basis | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New development charges | 23 | -28.1% | 12 months to September 2026 vs the 12 months before | Down |
| Development charges satisfied (exits filed) | 9 | -67.9% | 12 months to September 2026 vs the 12 months before | Down |
| Exit-type lending to developers | 18 | +12.5% | bridging, specialist-bank and private-credit charges on development companies | Up |
| Live development book over 24 months old | 74.5% | +13.2 pts | at 30 September 2026, compared with 61.3% across England and Wales | Above national |
| New-build sales registered | 628 | +9% | settled 12 months (registration lag allowed for) vs the 12 months before | Up |
| New developer and property companies | 658 | +19.4% | SIC 41100, 41202, 68100 by registered office; live register only | Up |
Companies House · development lending
Development lending and exits in Tower Hamlets
Development lenders registered 23 new charges against sites and developers in Tower Hamlets in the 12 months to September 2026, against 32 in the 12 months before (-28.1%). Those charges were taken by 17 separate borrowing companies.
Repayments ran at 9 over the same 12 months. 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 Tower Hamlets developers
Bridging lenders, specialist banks and funds took 18 charges over Tower Hamlets development companies in the year to September 2026 (+12.5% on the 16 of the year before).
Specialist and challenger banks held the largest number, 17. The third quarter of 2026 alone brought 8, against 5 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 Tower Hamlets
Of 572 property charges in Tower Hamlets we could match to a lender type, 78.5% sat with specialist lenders (national: 87.5%). Mainstream banks do relatively more here: specialists are 9 points below the national share.
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 Tower Hamlets came to 628 over the latest settled year (to September 2025), up 9% from 576. New-build made up 20.7% of all sales (8.1% nationally).
The new-build premium was 76.9% on flats (£796,000 median).
All residential sales totalled 2,261 in the settled 12 months to April 2026 (-34.1% 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
Between 1 July 2025 and 30 September 2026, 73 residential applications were approved (37 new build, 11 change of use, 9 prior approval) and 57 awaited a decision.
Where an approval states units (47 of them), they add up to at least 947 homes.
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) | Units | Type | Decided |
|---|---|---|---|
| Near E16 2qf | 442 | new build | 2025-07-14 |
| 145 | new build | 2025-10-31 | |
| Near E2 0lr | 53 | new build | 2026-06-26 |
| Near E1w 3bp | 30 | new build | 2026-06-02 |
| Near E2 6ne | 9 | new build | 2026-09-01 |
Companies House · registrations
New developer companies
New single-purpose companies are where most schemes start. Tower Hamlets added 658 in the year to September 2026, up 19.4% on the prior year, 213 of them developers.
Year on year: 156 in the third quarter of 2026, 144 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
Tower Hamlets against England and Wales
| Measure | Tower Hamlets | Change | England and Wales | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New development charges, 12 months | 23 | -28.1% | 9,562 | +11.3% |
| Development charges satisfied, 12 months | 9 | -67.9% | 3,908 | +21.2% |
| Live development book at 30 September 2026 | 204 | 42,944 | ||
| Share of live book over 24 months old | 74.5% | 61.3% | ||
| Exit-type lending to developers, 12 months | 18 | +12.5% | 5,002 | -0.4% |
| New-build sales, settled 12 months | 628 | +9% | 67,091 | -7.1% |
| New-build share of sales, settled 12 months | 20.7% | 8.1% | ||
| New developer and property companies, 12 months | 658 | +19.4% | 58,644 | -5.1% |
What it means
What this means for developers exiting in Tower Hamlets
3 signals rose in Tower Hamlets (exit-type lending, new-build sales, new companies) and 2 fell (new development lending, loan repayments).
Ageing loans mean pressure from development lenders to repay. Refinancing onto exit finance before a facility expires usually costs less than negotiating an extension.
More new-build sales being registered means buyers are there, which makes exit loans easier to size.
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 Tower Hamlets 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: Tower Hamlets (local authority boundaries). Minimum sample 30. 18 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 Tower Hamlets: common questions
How many developers borrowed in Tower Hamlets last year?
17 development companies registered 23 charges to development lenders in the 12 months to September 2026, and 9 development loans were filed as repaid over the same period.
How many Tower Hamlets schemes are past a normal development term?
Measured by charge age, 74.5% of the live development book in Tower Hamlets 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.
Completing a scheme in Tower Hamlets?
Send us the scheme, the current facility and the sales position and we will give a view on the exit options and indicative terms.