Commercial and property finance in Argyll and the islands

This is home. 9ROK is based in Oban and we own and run a hotel on the west coast, so Argyll is not a region on a map to us; it is where we live, trade and borrow. Oban, Lorn and Appin, Mull and Tobermory, Iona, Coll and Tiree, Islay and Jura, Colonsay, Bute, Kintyre, Cowal and the Kyles: a market of hotels, guest houses, self-catering businesses, marine firms, ferry-port trade and holiday parks that many lenders decline sight unseen because of the postcode. They are wrong, and we know which lenders agree.

Commercial mortgages from £75k for trading businesses and investment property, bridging when a closing date lands mid-season and there is no time to wait for a bank, development finance to turn steadings, churches and boat sheds into accommodation, and asset finance for the kit, from commercial kitchens to workboats. If we would not borrow on the terms ourselves, we will say so.

Island lending and ferry-dependent valuations

A property on Mull is valued by a surveyor who has to catch the ferry to see it, using comparables from a market where a dozen sales a year is a busy one. That has three consequences we deal with every week. First, the valuation evidence has to be built rather than assumed: recent sales, agreed prices, the trading figures, and an honest note on what the ferry timetable does to costs and season length. Second, the lender field is narrow. Some will not lend on the islands at all, some will look at Mull and Islay but not the smaller islands, and a few genuinely like strong lifestyle-destination businesses on the tourist routes and price them fairly. Third, loan-to-value tends to sit 5 to 10 points below the mainland equivalent, so the deposit conversation happens early (indicative). None of this makes island deals unfundable. A deal that dies at one lender completes comfortably at another, and matching the postcode to the lender that actually completes in PA postcodes is the first job on every case.

Hospitality on the west coast

Hospitality runs through the Argyll economy, and much of it looks like our own business. A guest house or B&B in Oban or Tobermory where the owners live on site, which can still be a commercial mortgage when the letting rooms are the point of the building. An established self-catering business of cottages or chalets with an owner’s house, sold on figures the retiring owners let slip in the last two years. A campsite or holiday park on the Kintyre or Cowal coast adding pods and lodges, where the pods go on asset finance and the ground on property finance. Short-term let licensing applies across the region, and the licence belongs in the application pack. Seasonality here is more extreme than anywhere in Scotland, and a full trading year, presented straight, is what keeps a case alive at underwriting.

Marine and ferry-port businesses

Oban is a working port, and the marine economy behind it, from aquaculture and boatyards to charter and dive operators, funds through a mix of asset finance on vessels and equipment and property finance on yards and sheds. Vessels need marine-experienced funders, and there are fewer of them than for vans. We arrange both sides. For the boats themselves, from a skippered charter yacht or a wildlife trip boat out of Oban to a workboat on fish farm contract, see our charter boat and workboat finance page.