Five different floor areas. An old planning drawing. A budget for a scheme you have already changed.
These discrepancies make a development harder to assess. They also make it harder for you to know which numbers you can trust.
Before discussing funding, organise a consistent description of the project. Your lender will set its own requirements, but a clear information pack gives your advisers a better starting point.
Establish exactly what you intend to build
Record the site, proposed use, number of units and current design stage. Keep the latest drawings together and identify their revision dates.
Separate confirmed information from proposals. A planning application is different from a permission. Permission is different from satisfying relevant conditions. Neither means every technical or legal issue has been resolved.
If the design is still changing, say so. Let your team see the uncertainty instead of presenting an early concept as a finished construction package.
Connect the design to the cost plan
Your cost adviser needs to know what the budget includes. Groundworks, drainage, external works, service connections and temporary works can materially affect a scheme, even when they are barely visible in a marketing image.
Record important assumptions and exclusions. Identify items awaiting investigation or specialist design. Make sure the specification being costed matches the quality and performance you intend to deliver.
Ask the finance adviser to incorporate the wider development costs, borrowing arrangements and repayment plan. A construction estimate alone is insufficient for that job.
Show how the work is expected to happen
Prepare a realistic programme with the people responsible for delivering it. Include investigations, design coordination, relevant approvals, procurement, construction and completion activities.
Highlight dependencies. If a specialist package cannot be ordered until a detail is resolved, that decision belongs in the programme. If a connection date is unconfirmed, mark it as unconfirmed.
An ambitious start date is less useful than a sequence the team can explain.
Identify the team and the gaps
List the architect, structural engineer, contractor, cost adviser, legal adviser and other required specialists. State who is appointed and who is still to be selected.
Clarify responsibilities rather than assuming that one appointment covers every service. Your lender may require particular reports, inspections, insurance arrangements or contractual documents. Obtain its requirements early enough for the team to respond.
Keep one current pack
Use a dated document register. When the design changes, check which costs, areas and programme assumptions need updating with it.
This is a practical discipline rather than a promise of approval. A lender still makes its own assessment of the borrower, project, security and repayment strategy.
Horizon can help clarify the architectural scope and design information within an agreed appointment, working alongside your other advisers. We do not arrange loans or make lending decisions.
Send Horizon your current scheme and the architectural information your adviser has requested to discuss the next design stage.
General information only. Funding requirements vary. Take project-specific financial and legal advice before entering a borrowing arrangement.
