Category 05
Development finance and monitoring
Initial appraisal, drawdown certification, cost to complete and reporting written for a credit team.
Preparing a cost plan for a funding application
The cost plan that persuades your board is not the cost plan that satisfies a funder. One is answering whether the scheme works. The other is answering...
Headroom in a facility and where it goes
Nobody sets out to run a facility to the edge. It happens one small overpayment at a time, and the shortfall only becomes visible when there is no work...
Why lenders want your equity in first
The order in which money goes into a scheme is not an accounting detail. It decides how much of your own capital is at risk before anybody else has any...
When the monitoring surveyor disagrees with your valuation
A reduced drawdown is not an accusation. It is two people measuring the same building and reaching different numbers, and the reasons are usually...
Verifying the final account before the last release
After the last release the lender has advanced everything and holds nothing. Whatever is going to be checked has to be checked before that.
Reading a borrower's cost plan as a lender
You are not checking whether the number is right. You are checking whether it can be tested at all.
Why the monitoring surveyor must be independent
The borrower pays, the lender relies, and everybody works together every month. The only thing holding that arrangement together is structure.
Warning signs in the third drawdown
Facilities do not fail suddenly. They fail slowly and then suddenly, and the slow part is visible from about the third month.
The initial appraisal report, section by section
It is the only report written while the lender still has full negotiating leverage. Everything conditioned at this point is free.
Contingency adequacy from the lender's side
A borrower's contingency is the lender's first line of defence. It is also the line most often set by convention rather than by analysis.
Cost to complete, the only number that matters
A facility does not fail because too much has been spent. It fails because what remains will not finish the job.
Drawdown certification explained
Every month somebody decides how much of a facility can be released. The difference between doing that properly and approving an application is the...
What a development monitoring surveyor does
The role is often described as checking progress. It is closer to answering one question every month: does the remaining money still finish the building.