Mint Property Finance - Altrincham

Alex Wright

WARNING - AVOID MINT AT ALL COSTS

We spent 4 months working on a Development Finance application with Mint, spending lots of time re-working our designs in order to bring the project within Mint's lending criteria. We also had a Bridging Loan that was to be refinanced as part of the loan agreement, which was coming to the end of its term.

We had 4 separate Decision In Principle terms from them, with the final set agreed and credit checked / confirmed based on the valuations received from their surveyors. Following this outline agreement, we then proceeded with instructing the Project Monitoring Surveyor and Solicitors. Upon receipt of the Project Monitoring Surveyors report, Mint then decided to change the terms of their lending criteria and reduced the GDV of our development by 10% due to their own new "market projections" citing reductions in the market. They then reduced their lending offer, leaving us with a massive shortfall for redeeming our Bridging Loan, with only 3 weeks left on the term. We subsequently had to scramble around for a new lender at extremely short notice, with new fees for valuation/survey/solicitors due to Mint's actions. When we asked for a refund of these costs, we were only offered a refund of the Surveyor's costs as a gesture of "good will"... So, not only did we lose money on fees, we also wasted nearly 4 months re-working the designs to suit Mint with interest accrued on our existing bridging loan, not to mention the stress caused by their timing. It was certainly surprising how easily Mint reneged on agreed Decision In Principle terms based on nothing more than their own vague notions of "market deterioration".

We then subsequently used their complaints process to lodge an official complaint... Given Mint are unregulated, their complaints procedure is handled "in-house" ie. they police themselves. Mint purport to be "impartial" in spite of this glaring structural problem and handled the complaint much as expected - essentially repeating the reasoning we were given previously. What this so-called "full investigation" failed to do was to ask for our side of the story, a somewhat fundamental part of any impartial investigation... It is simply a token effort to present themselves as professional lenders.

To conclude, Mint represent a significant financial risk to your Development project. We strongly recommend looking at alternative lenders with higher standards of professionalism, accountability and integrity.

Gemma Bradbury

Signature Financial Services dealt with Dave Gregory at Mint Bridging. We would like to say a big thank you to Dave who was brilliant throughout the whole process on what was a challenging case. We would not hesitate to use Mint Bridging and again would like to say a big thank you to Dave.

Megan Sarah

It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Sarah and the team at Mint, the case felt like it breezed through, fast service throughout with an all-round friendly and on-hand team. Looking forward to the next one with you!

Zara Brindley

excellent flexible lender

Renee Haddow

Ready Money Plc

L W

David Wilson