Written by the Lendus editorial team. Last updated .
The best Atelier Finance alternatives include Magnet Capital for schemes from £500,000 including first-time developers, CrowdProperty for a published monthly rate from £200,000, Avamore Capital for less experienced developers from £250,000, Hampshire Trust Bank for bank-backed lending to £35 million, OakNorth for bespoke facilities from £1 million, Octopus Real Estate for schemes up to £100 million, and LendInvest for loans from £75,000.
Atelier Finance, trading through Atelier Capital Partners Limited, is a London development and bridging lender built for the upper end of the market. It writes bespoke loans of £3,000,000 to £40,000,000 across residential, purpose-built student accommodation, build-to-rent, care and bridging, at Bank of England Base Rate plus a margin of 4.99% to 6.99%. Gearing is generous, up to 90% loan-to-cost and up to 70% loan-to-gross-development-value, interest is charged daily so you pay only for time drawn, and a dedicated drawdown team handles staged releases through the build.
For a professional developer running a £12,000,000 scheme, that is a well-designed product. The reasons developers end up looking elsewhere are almost always about eligibility rather than quality.
The floor is the first and biggest. £3,000,000 is where Atelier starts, which excludes most UK residential development outright.
The track record requirement is the second. Atelier targets professional developers with a demonstrable record of similar completed developments and is explicitly not suited to first-time developers.
Base rate exposure is third. Pricing is a margin over Bank of England Base Rate rather than a fixed rate, so a build programme running through a rate cycle carries that risk.
Certainty is fourth. Atelier publishes no fixed rate card and no guaranteed approval speed, so exact cost and timing require a direct enquiry on every scheme.
Regulation is fifth. The development and bridging products are unregulated exempt agreements, so borrowers do not get FCA consumer protections on these loans.
The seven lenders below each solve one of those problems, and the list is ordered by the one that blocks the most developers: loan size.
Magnet Capital does exactly the thing Atelier will not. It funds ground-up development, light and heavy refurbishment and conversion schemes from £500,000 to £4,000,000, six times below Atelier’s entry point, and it states that first-time developers can secure funding where the project is well-structured. Gearing is competitive at up to 65% loan-to-GDV and up to 90% loan-to-cost, matching Atelier on the loan-to-cost side. A decision in principle is often available within minutes of receiving key project information, and stage payments are released within 48 hours of a site inspection.
Rates and amounts: no standard rate range published; interest is typically calculated on a rolled-up basis with an option to service monthly, and pricing is assessed per project and confirmed on application; £500,000 to £4,000,000.
Eligibility: no minimum trading history stated; first-time developers considered where the project is well-structured; no published turnover requirement.
Timeline: decision in principle often within minutes; typical timeline from sign-up to completion is 6 to 10 weeks.
Regulatory status: Magnet Capital Limited states on its own website that it is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority under firm reference number 827220, while describing its ground-up development and refurbishment finance as unregulated development finance for business-purpose projects. It is a member of the Bridging and Development Lenders Association.
Beats Atelier on: minimum loan size and developer experience. Its £4,000,000 ceiling is a tenth of Atelier’s, so it does not scale with you, and it publishes no rates.
CrowdProperty is the only lender on this panel that publishes an actual development finance rate range, 0.65% to 1.1% per month, so you can model finance cost across the programme before you apply rather than after. It funds residential and mixed-use schemes from £200,000 to £10,000,000, was founded by property development professionals, and holds the highest Trustpilot rating of any UK development finance provider on our panel at 4.9 from more than 320 reviews. Indicative terms come within 48 hours and a full credit decision within 2 weeks.
Rates and amounts: 0.65% to 1.1% per month for development finance, with arrangement fees typically 2% of the loan; £200,000 to £10,000,000.
Eligibility: no trading history required; development experience matters more than trading history; no turnover requirement.
Timeline: indicative terms within 48 hours, full credit decision within 2 weeks, drawdown from 4 weeks.
Regulatory status: CrowdProperty Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, firm reference number 723959.
Beats Atelier on: pricing transparency and a £200,000 entry point. It funds residential and mixed-use only, so commercial development is out of scope, it is less suitable for first-time developers without a completed project, and because it is part-funded by retail investors, timelines depend on investor appetite.
Avamore bridges the gap between Magnet Capital’s accessibility and Atelier’s scale. It lends £250,000 to £25,000,000 across bridging, ground-up development, part-complete development, refurbishment and purpose-built student accommodation, and states that development finance is available to less experienced developers rather than only those with an established track record. It is also unusually flexible on borrower profile, explicitly considering foreign and overseas resident borrowers and complicated equity structures, and it says it is flexible on personal guarantees.
Rates and amounts: bridging from 0.56% per month with Bank of England Base Rate added to the Avamore rate and fixed for the life of the loan; development finance quoted separately from 6.75% per annum plus base rate; no maximum rate is published as each loan is priced individually; £250,000 to £25,000,000, with ground-up development from £500,000.
Eligibility: no minimum trading history or turnover published; lending is assessed on the property, the loan-to-value or loan-to-GDV, and the exit strategy.
Timeline: bridging typically within 3 to 4 days; refurbishment finance often approved within 24 hours.
Regulatory status: Avamore Capital is not FCA-authorised. It states on its own website that it is a provider of unregulated loans to corporate entities and private individuals, and that any loans made to private individuals comply with the exemptions set out in the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Regulated Activities) Order 2001.
Beats Atelier on: entry point, developer experience and a fixed base rate at drawdown rather than a floating one. Development lending is restricted to mainland England and Wales, so Scotland and Northern Ireland are out.
If the concern is that Atelier is an unregulated specialist rather than a bank, Hampshire Trust Bank is the answer at similar scale. It is a full UK deposit-taking bank with a per-customer lending ceiling of £35,000,000 across bridging, specialist mortgages and development finance, close to Atelier’s £40,000,000, and it publishes no minimum loan size, so smaller schemes can at least be discussed. Bridging completions are targeted within 21 days with dual legal representation, and there are no early repayment charges on bridging.
Rates and amounts: rates are not published for direct comparison; bridging, development finance and specialist mortgage pricing is provided via rate cards issued to registered brokers through the PUMA intermediary portal; no minimum loan size published, maximum £35,000,000.
Eligibility: no minimum published; HTB lends only through registered intermediaries and assesses each case individually rather than against a fixed trading history rule.
Regulatory status: Hampshire Trust Bank Plc is a full UK bank, authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by both the Financial Conduct Authority and the PRA, firm reference number 204601. Customer deposits are protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.
Beats Atelier on: bank status, no published minimum loan size and a stated bridging completion target of 21 days where Atelier publishes no turnaround at all. You cannot apply directly, so you need a registered broker, and rates are only visible through broker rate cards.
OakNorth is a UK bank that lends from £1,000,000 with no published maximum, funding property development, real estate investment, acquisition finance and fund finance. Every facility is individually underwritten rather than credit-scored, and OakNorth states it can fund partners within weeks rather than months and in some cases within days. For a developer whose scheme sits between £1,000,000 and £3,000,000, this is the only bank on the panel that will look at it on a bespoke basis rather than through a rate card.
Rates and amounts: no standard rate range published; pricing is individually assessed per deal based on trading history, turnover, profitability and EBITDA; from £1,000,000, with the maximum described only as tens of millions.
Eligibility: no fixed minimum trading history or turnover published; both are assessed case by case as part of underwriting.
Regulatory status: OakNorth Bank plc is authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority, Financial Services Register number 629564.
Beats Atelier on: a £1,000,000 entry point from a regulated bank, and a wider set of deal types including acquisitions and fund finance. It publishes no rates and no guaranteed decision timescale, so you cannot benchmark before applying.
Octopus is where you go when Atelier’s £40,000,000 ceiling is the constraint. Its development loans run from £5,000,000 up to £100,000,000, among the largest limits of any UK specialist real estate lender, backed by Octopus Group’s institutional funding lines. It is also the only lender here offering a genuine sustainability incentive, with a rate discount of up to 0.15% per month available on bridging and development loans that improve a property’s EPC rating, plus a dedicated Greener Homes Alliance development product. It offers both regulated and unregulated bridging from the same lender.
Rates and amounts: residential bridging from 0.55% per month and commercial bridging from 0.85% per month, with no ceiling rate published; development and refurbishment loan rates are not published; £50,000 to £100,000,000, with a £1,000,000 minimum on commercial bridging.
Eligibility: no minimum trading history or turnover published; lending is assessed against the security property, the development scheme and the exit strategy, and newly formed special purpose vehicles are commonly used.
Regulatory status: Octopus Investments Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, firm reference number 194779. Residential bridging secured on a property the borrower lives in or intends to live in is offered on a regulated basis; commercial bridging, development finance and buy-to-let mortgages for investment purposes are provided on an unregulated basis.
Beats Atelier on: maximum scheme size and the EPC rate discount. Development starts at £5,000,000, higher than Atelier’s £3,000,000, so this is a step up rather than a step down.
LendInvest is the lowest entry point on this panel at £75,000, forty times below Atelier’s floor, and it lends up to £15,000,000 across bridging, development finance and commercial mortgages. It is an AIM-listed technology-driven lender with published bridging pricing of 0.54% to 1.2% per month and development finance from 7% per annum, and it turns credit decisions around in 24 to 48 hours with legal completion in 2 to 4 weeks. For a small residential conversion or a single-plot scheme, it is often the only realistic route on this list.
Rates and amounts: bridging 0.54% to 1.2% per month, development finance from 7% per annum; £75,000 to £15,000,000.
Eligibility: no trading history required for property-backed lending, and no turnover requirement, but development finance requires demonstrable developer experience.
Timeline: credit decision within 24 to 48 hours; legal completion 2 to 4 weeks.
Regulatory status: Lendus has not independently verified LendInvest’s regulatory position from a primary source, so no FCA claim is made here. Check LendInvest on the FCA Register at register.fca.org.uk before committing.
Beats Atelier on: minimum loan size and decision speed. Arrangement and exit fees can add meaningfully to total cost, and it is less flexible than some specialists on complex adverse credit.
| Lender | Development amount | Rate | First-time developers | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Atelier Finance | £3,000,000 to £40,000,000 | BBR+4.99% to BBR+6.99% p.a. | No | Not published |
| Magnet Capital | £500,000 to £4,000,000 | Not published | Yes, if well-structured | DIP within minutes |
| CrowdProperty | £200,000 to £10,000,000 | 0.65% to 1.1% per month | Less suitable | Terms within 48 hours |
| Avamore Capital | £500,000 to £25,000,000 | From 6.75% p.a. plus BBR | Less experienced considered | Refurb within 24 hours |
| Hampshire Trust Bank | Up to £35,000,000 | Broker rate cards only | Not published | Bridging target 21 days |
| OakNorth Bank | From £1,000,000 | Not published | Not published | Weeks, sometimes days |
| Octopus Real Estate | £5,000,000 to £100,000,000 | Not published for development | Not published | Not published |
| LendInvest | £75,000 to £15,000,000 | From 7% p.a. | Experience required | Decision 24 to 48 hours |
Monthly rates and annual rates are different units and cannot be compared directly. Where a rate is quoted over Bank of England Base Rate, the all-in cost depends on the prevailing base rate.
Choose Magnet Capital if your scheme needs £500,000 to £4,000,000 and this is one of your first developments.
Choose CrowdProperty if it is residential or mixed-use and you want a monthly rate you can put into a cash flow model today.
Choose Avamore Capital if you need more than £4,000,000, are not yet an established developer, and your site is in mainland England or Wales.
Choose Hampshire Trust Bank if you want a PRA-authorised bank on a large scheme and you already work with a registered broker.
Choose OakNorth if the requirement sits between £1,000,000 and £3,000,000 and the deal has features a rate card cannot accommodate.
Choose Octopus Real Estate if the scheme is above £40,000,000, or if an EPC improvement means the 0.15% per month discount is genuinely available to you.
Choose LendInvest if the requirement is under £500,000 and no other lender on this list will look at it.
A final point specific to development finance. Because interest on most of these facilities is charged on drawn funds over the build programme, the headline rate matters less than the drawdown schedule and how quickly your lender releases stage payments. Magnet Capital releases within 48 hours of a site inspection and Atelier runs a dedicated drawdown team. Ask about that process before you commit, because a slow drawdown on a cheap facility costs more than a fast drawdown on an expensive one.
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