The firm who are based in Glasgow and currently lend on non FSA regulated deals of both first and second charge, have over 20 years’ experience in the finance sector and will be left unable to carry out any regulated lending if their licence is revoked as planned. This will also leave an enormous gap for bridging finance requirements in Scotland as they are one of the few lenders offering finance in this area.

Bridging Loans Limited and its Director (then Joseph Cummings) were also fined in 2010 in relation to serious failures relating to lending practices.

The licence revocation will only be executed after the appeal made by Bridging Loans Limited is assessed and only if the appeal is declined and the case is found in favour of the Office of Fair Trading will this be implemented.

Commenting on the announcement, David Levitus, Director at Bridging Loans Limited, exclusively told B&C: “It is widely known that the FSA have been investigating the bridging industry for the past two years. We were fined by the FSA in 2010 for inadequacies in our regulated lending procedures but we have since implemented new systems and policies across the board. We were informed at that time that it was automatic that the OFT would subsequently withdraw our consumer credit licences and that we would have to re-apply for our licences.

“We can continue to conduct commercial lending (e.g. residential buy-to-lets, commercial property bridging, development finance) and the restrictions only apply to regulated lending, which was only ever a small percentage of our business.

“Although an OFT licence is not required for commercial lending, we are appealing the OFT decision because we want to leave the door open to do FSA regulated bridging in the future.  Bridging Loans Ltd has been under new management since 2010 and with our new internal administrative procedures, we are confident of a bright future.”

With regulation next year tightening it is clear that there will be more cases of this nature brought to light in the near future.

Sales on the market recorded the usual New Year dip in 2012 but in relation to figures from January 2008 more purchases completed in the first month of 2012.

The housing market shows a trend reducing the amount of sales recorded for January in most years before the market activity starts to increase for the spring months.

There have been some suggestions from those in the industry that the imminent end to the stamp duty concession has pushed up interest among first-time buyers at the start of the year.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders state that January transactions were up approximately 10%, when compared with the same month last year.

One of the foremost lenders looking for business in the development finance sector is Regentsmead. A well-established company who have been able to continue financing in the current market due to being 100% self-funded and therefore in control of their own finances. This has enabled them to continue throughout the recession in good lending to development clients and enabled them to become top financier in this type of lending.

Over recent months there have been many articles referring to the lull in the amount of development finance available and it seems this trend is set to continue for the near future. Mainstream lenders it seems do not have the hunger for this type of deal as they once did although a few traditional lenders still offer standard finance options for build.

Regentsmead provides facilities of up to 50% of the gross development value with cases staring from £100,000. All brokerage fees are also collected by Regentsmead and paid upon offer and not draw-down as with other lenders.

The letter written to shareholders by the CEO Jeff Immelt and the GE chairman and CEO says “Today, GE has a stronger portfolio, large-scale competitive advantage, product and technology leadership, and strength in the growth markets.

“This year, we expect to have organic growth of 5 to 10% with expanding margins. GE Capital is smaller and focused on specialty finance, particularly in mid-market segments. We expect GE Capital’s earnings rebound to continue in 2012.”

The revenues for GE Capital decreased by 1% to $45.7bn in 2011. Net earnings increased to $6.5bn for the year.

The revenues for GECAS in 2011 increased by 3% to $5.3b, and declared net earnings decreased by 4% to $1.15bn. It seems to have been a better year for the firm when compared with figures overall for 2010.

In its forecast, the Council of Mortgage Lenders suggest an increase from 37,000 repossessions taken place last year to 45,000 in the current financial year.

With the above issues looming on the property market it is expected that the trend for property sales and mortgage lending quantities are also likely to fall again this year. The predicted fall would see property sales at their lowest since 1978. CML have however said that the higher level of repossessions expected, would still be lower than the total amount of repossessions recorded for 2009 when the current recession grabbed hold, and much lower than the 1990s recorded repossession figures.