Office Property Bridging Loans Sussex

Office stock across Sussex ranges from Grade A floors at Manor Royal in Crawley and the prime Brighton waterfront and New England Quarter buildings, through to secondary 1960s, 1970s and 1980s blocks across the BN1 central core, Worthing town centre, Eastbourne BN21, Chichester PO19 and Horsham RH12, through to converted Regency and Edwardian terraced offices around Brighton's Hove BN3 squares and the older Chichester city stock. The market is bifurcated. Well-located, well-specced floors near the Brighton creative-tech cluster, the Gatwick airport supply chain at Manor Royal and the Chichester professional-services core let well, often to tech, professional services, media and aviation occupiers. Secondary blocks have struggled with hybrid working and many are candidates for Class MA conversion to residential or hotel conversion under permitted development or full planning, particularly across Brighton, Crawley and Worthing. Each of those positions reads differently to a bridging lender and the underwriting follows.

Sussex office demand sits on top of three distinct sub-economies. Brighton BN1 carries one of the strongest creative-tech clusters outside London, with software firms, design agencies, digital marketing businesses and games studios occupying converted warehouses across the New England Quarter, the North Laine fringe and the BN1 city core. The University of Sussex and the University of Brighton anchor a graduate-feeder occupier base, and the city's reputation pulls firms that want a non-London base inside an hour of King's Cross. Gatwick Airport at Crawley anchors a very different office market in RH10 and RH11, with the Manor Royal estate hosting aviation, logistics, engineering and ground-handling occupiers alongside the wider Crawley professional-services base. Chichester PO19 carries a professional-services hub that serves the West Sussex coastal-and-rural population: law firms, accountants, surveyors and West Sussex County Council operate from city-centre stock, with the Goodwood Estate generating a hospitality and motor-industry office spillover that gives the market a niche flavour. Across the rest of the county, Worthing, Eastbourne, Hastings, Horsham and Hove all carry secondary office stock with active Class MA conversion pipelines, particularly Brighton BN1 office-to-resi runs and Crawley RH10 conversions of tired secondary blocks. For a bridging case, the relevant point is that Sussex office demand is driven by creative-tech, aviation supply chain, professional services and tourism-and-leisure spillover rather than the speculative finance demand that drives London. Lenders who understand this price the asset correctly. Lenders who do not, price as if it were any other secondary South East office market, and miss the deal.

A typical Sussex office bridge sits at £500,000 to £4 million, 60 to 70% LTV, 9 to 15 months term, 0.75 to 1.25% per month, arrangement fee 1.5 to 2%. We package the planning position, the covenant evidence and the exit plan up front so the lender sees the case the way the underwriter needs to see it. Conversion cases include a monitored works tranche; investment-purchase cases focus on the lease and the refinance route. Completion in 14 to 21 days is normal where the title and planning are clean. Where there is a contested planning position, the underwriting takes longer and the rate moves up.