Together Commercial Term: 10 surprising features every broker should know.

Tired of working out which lenders do what, getting stuck on rigid criteria restrictions, or getting slowed down by processes? Commercial property finance shouldn’t feel like guesswork.

So, here’s a quick look at 10 ways that our Commercial Term product is different from the norm. Simple, practical and designed to help you say yes to more clients.

1. We can lend to foreign nationals and UK expats

At Together, we believe that Britain is open for business. That means that we can support foreign nationals based here or abroad, as well as expatriate investors. It’s a straightforward feature, but one that many lenders simply won’t offer. A lot of providers restrict lending to UK residents or applicants with long-established credit footprints.

We take a more common-sense approach. If the finance is secured against UK property, the case meets our affordability and product criteria, and your client doesn’t reside in one of the few high‑risk countries we can’t support, we’ll be happy to take a look.

2. We can rely on a valuation for 4 months

Commercial property purchases can often be complicated and come with unexpected delays. It can be equally frustrating when these setbacks mean that previously completed tasks, like valuations, are no longer valid.

That’s the main reason why we can use valuations for up to 4 months from the date on the survey report (where other lenders typically allow up to 3 months). It’s that extra breathing room you need at the end of a long process, keeping the deal on schedule and avoiding your client needing to pay out for a new valuation.

3. We don't review unsecured arrears

Brokers know that when it comes to real-world commercial business, the occasional late payment of a bill or invoice is an unfortunate but often unavoidable reality. So, when small or historic unsecured blips appear on their client’s credit history, it feels unfair that it should stop your client qualifying for the funding they need.

At Together, we look at the property, lease profile, income and business performance, and not a missed credit card payment. It means we can help you place even more cases, including for clients with less than perfect credit that might’ve been turned away elsewhere.

4. We also lend in Scotland and Wales

We may be based in England, but our commercial footprint covers the whole of the Great Britain. We have a long history of supporting businesses and investors from Loch Ness to London via Llanelli, with dedicated local property experts in every region to help you get your client’s next deal over the line.

Behind them is an experienced team of underwriters who understand the differences between each country’s property, legal and business processes. It sounds like a small detail, but this knowledge makes a big difference. It helps us navigate regional nuances, avoid delays and keep even the more complex commercial cases moving where less experienced teams might slow things down.

We can now offer dual representation in Scotland, in addition to England and Wales, with a dedicated legal panel on hand to help.

5. We can support complex leases

Let’s start with something that you probably already know about us. We’re really flexible on the types of properties we can lend on, from shops to hotels, office blocks to industrial hubs. Throw in restaurants, gyms, undeveloped land, the odd Equestrian Centre, grade-listed buildings, and more, and you start to see the breadth of cases we can help with.

But you probably don’t know that we can also consider a wide range of lease types too. These include short leases, properties with multiple tenants on different lease lengths, non-FRI leases (where the property owner is responsible for full repair and insurance costs and not the tenant) and semi-commercial or mixed use spaces.

6. We can cross-charge against any property type

Being able to use multiple properties as security (known as cross charging) is essential for many businesses and portfolio investors. It can help clients manage affordability by accessing the equity they already have, unlock potentially stronger rates through lower overall LTVs, and reduce risk for the lender by spreading security across more than one asset.

While plenty of lenders allow cross charging, many restrict it to properties of the same type. That can be limiting for clients with mixed portfolios that include commercial units, buy to lets, land, semi commercial buildings and more.

We take a broader view. We can consider a mix of different UK-based properties as part of the security package.

7. We don’t have a minimum income threshold

This one’s short and sweet. When it comes to our affordability assessment, we don’t need your client to earn a specific amount of personal income.

But, if we use TSDI to assess affordability, we can consider using personal income to supplement rental or commercial income (known as top slicing) on referral, making affordability even easier.

8. We can assess affordability in three different ways

Assessing the affordability is arguably the most important part of any commercial mortgage case. But there isn’t a simple ‘one size fits all’ approach to working it out, and it can be frustrating when your lender doesn’t use an approach that reflects how your client actually works.

That’s why we use three different affordability models so we can find a route that fits and gets your client the outcome they want. Let’s take a closer look at each method:

• Interest Cover Ratio (ICR):Works out whether the rental or commercial income from the property covers the mortgage payments by a required margin. This is usually represented as a percentage.
• TSDI (Total Sustained Debt Income): Uses the client’s wider personal income to support affordability, allowing income outside the property (top slicing) to help make the deal work.
• EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortisation): Looks at the financial performance of a trading business to assess whether the business itself can sustain the loan.

9. We can support an ICR of 120% when looking at affordability

Many lenders require high rental coverage ratios (typically between 125% and 150%), which can make perfectly good deals fall over, especially when rents are modest, leases are short, or the property has multiple tenants.

Our standard ICR is 120%, but we can accept 90% if using projected rental income. We can also consider using ICR for the affordability assessment on both limited company and personal name cases.

10. We provide a Second Charge Commercial Term product

We’ve saved one of the best features of our commercial term range for last, and it’s one that not a lot of other lenders will consider.

If your client has a property that they’re paying an existing mortgage for, they may have built up a sizeable amount of equity in it. We can help them to unlock this equity with a Second Charge Commercial Term loan (also known as a secured loan), which could be vital for businesses or investors looking for capital to fund necessary improvements, purchase additional properties, or fuel further growth.

At Together, we’ve designed our commercial mortgages with real businesses and real situations in mind, from startups and SMEs, all the way up to multi-nationals and millionaire portfolio investors.

We’ve even got a dedicated Premier for Intermediaries service that streamlines those complex £1m+ cases for you. Get in touch to see how we can help your clients.