08/07/2026
A little 'before and after' & case study of one of our latest projects in the heart of Cheltenham Town Centre. Many lessons learnt on this one but despite some setbacks, it was still a very profitable project and will likely stay in the portfolio for years to come.
https://youtu.be/I_MpKGpRbAY
- Mixed use building (a split-level office on ground & basement floors and a two-bedroom maisonette on ground, first & second floors)
- Acquired in November 2025 using bridging finance with a title split carried out on completion
The aim:
- Convert the office to a 2-bedroom apartment under PD rights. Refurbish the maisonette and refinance both taking all money out of the deal plus some.
Reality:
- Despite meeting all criteria and actively engaging with the planning officer about the scheme prior to submission, 2 PD right applications on the office conversion were rejected apparently due to head height and lack of natural light. The scheme ticked all the boxes and met all standards and policy yet both applications received the same copy and paste response, even though we altered the 2nd one based on rejection comments of the 1st application. We decided to not pursue the office conversion as it'd likely meant having to excavate and increase the head height and bring more natural light in, so we decided to keep it as an office.
- We did refurbish the maisonette and completed all works within 4 weeks yet it took nearly 5 months to finally refinance, due to 2 lenders pulling out at the 11th hour even though the valuation came back good as they didn't like the title split figures and believed it was a distressed sale/ too much BMV and since we owned it less than 6 months it was a deal breaker, yet it only surfaced late in the deal, twice! Anyway, 3rd time is a charm, as they say.
Result:
- In the end, we have purposely left the commercial unit unencumbered due to the interest on small commercial units being too high. This means we have left nearly £90k of our own cash in the deal. However, we now have a mortgage free commercial unit which can be used as a collateral to quickly raise deposit funds on other purchases
- Commercial let on a new 3-year IRI lease & residential on an AST/ APT producing strong cashflow resulting in 20% ROCE with a strong equity uplift!
- OVERALL, A GREAT LEARNING CURVE AND WE MOVE FORWARD ONTO THE NEXT PROJECT STRONGER 💪
What latest obstacles have you faced in yours/ your client's property development projects?
