A £3M private bank mortgage enabled a US-based HNW client to purchase a £2.6M UK country home without a deposit, bridging loan, or liquidating investment assets.

The first question almost every UK lender asks an international buyer is: how much deposit are you putting down? It is the wrong question. For most high-net-worth clients buying property in Britain, a deposit is not the obstacle. Liquidity timing, asset location, and underwriting philosophy are.

I want to walk through a recent transaction we structured because it shows the gap between how mainstream lenders frame these deals and what an experienced private bank will actually do.

The client was a US-based individual buying a UK country property valued at approximately £2.6M. They already owned a London property outright, worth about £2M, and intended to sell it shortly after completing the country purchase. Their substantive wealth was held in US-based investment portfolios producing ongoing investment income. The objective was simple. Buy the new home. Sell the London property. Do not put cash in. Do not sell down US holdings.

A high street lender, even one experienced with HNW clients, would have struggled here. Affordability models default to salary and self-employment income. The client had neither in a form that a UK underwriter would recognise easily. Loan-to-value rules would have required cash from somewhere, either by liquidating investments or by raising a deposit against the London property in advance. And the timing of the London sale meant traditional bridging was the obvious answer. Bridging at £2.5M plus is not cheap. Rates, fees, exit risk, and the cost of arranging a separate long-term refinance afterwards add up quickly.

We placed the case with a private bank that took a different view. The bank lent £3M secured across both properties, against a combined value of around £4.6M. That works out at approximately 65 per cent loan-to-value on a blended basis. The portion of borrowing attributed to the London property was structured with no early repayment charges, allowing repayment in full the moment that the property sells. Underwriting was based on the wider balance sheet, with particular weight given to the income-generating US investment portfolio.

The result was a long-term mortgage at competitive private bank pricing, secured on day one, with no bridging premium, no liquidation of investments, and no personal capital required to complete. When the London sale eventually goes through, the relevant part of the loan is repaid automatically, and the client is left with a single mortgage on the country home at a sensible rate.

Three points are worth drawing out for advisers and brokers working with similar clients.

First, the balance sheet matters more than income for genuine HNW buyers, but you need a lender that can underwrite that way. Plenty of UK lenders pay lip service to the idea. Far fewer will write a £3M facility against US assets and no UK salary. Knowing which banks will, and at what price, is most of the job.

Second, cross-collateralisation is a tool, not a complication. Lending against two properties at once is straightforward when the client owns both, and the strategy for releasing one is clear. The administrative cost of structuring it that way is much lower than the financial cost of bridging.

Third, ERC structuring is where the value gets engineered. A private bank that writes a no-ERC clause for one property within a wider facility is creating optionality. The client gets long-term pricing without long-term lock-in on the bit they want to sell. That is what separates a thoughtful facility from a generic one.

The broader point is that UK property remains a deeply attractive asset for US and international HNW buyers. Sterling pricing, lifestyle, the legal framework, and the continued depth of the prime market all support that. What has often held the segment back is funding friction at the margin. The funding can usually be solved. The deposit question almost never tells you the right thing about the deal.

Read the full case study here: https://www.ennessglobal.com/insights/case-studies/pound-3m-mortgage-structured-no-deposit-requirement