"While bridging finance has long been viewed as a specialist tool for more niche segments of the market, such as property investors and auction buyers, we’re seeing a clear shift in how it’s being used."
- Thomas Cantor - West One Loans
Property fall-throughs cost UK buyers and sellers approximately £275.5 million in the first quarter of 2025, according to new analysis from specialist mortgage lender West One Loans. The increase in collapsed transactions has coincided with a noticeable rise in the use of bridging finance, as homebuyers and sellers try to avoid chain breaks.
The figures are based on West One Loans' review of TwentyCI data, which covered the estimated number of failed transactions during Q1, the average financial impact per fall-through, and the overall cost to the property market over the three-month period.
A total of 78,855 property deals collapsed between January and March, with each failure costing those involved an average of £3,493. This brings the total financial hit to £275.5 million, underscoring the widespread disruption that fall-throughs continue to cause.
The number of fall-throughs rose by 11.6% compared to Q4 2024 and by 23.5% year-on-year. At the same time, the average cost per failed transaction also increased, pushing total market losses up 13.2% from the previous quarter and 27.9% compared with the same period in 2024.
West One Loans attributes this trend to increased market activity driven by improved buyer confidence. However, the looming 31 March stamp duty deadline also likely contributed to the instability, prompting some deals to fall through before completion.
To minimise these risks, more property owners are turning to bridging finance as a short-term solution. Bridging Trends data shows that chain breaks have remained either the most or second most common reason for taking out a bridging loan across the past four quarters, closely followed by property investment needs.
“While bridging finance has long been viewed as a specialist tool for more niche segments of the market, such as property investors and auction buyers,” said Thomas Cantor, co-head of short-term finance at West One Loans. “We’re seeing a clear shift in how it’s being used.
“We’re seeing a growing number of homebuyers and sellers now turning to bridging to salvage their purchase or sale when a chain breaks down.”
Cantor noted that the growing demand for regulated bridging has prompted the lender to introduce limited edition rates tailored for these types of transactions.
“Bridging is no longer seen as a niche finance option and, as a result of this demand, we’ve introduced limited edition rates for this more vanilla flavour of regulated lending in order to further capture this segment of the market,” he continued.
“Speed and certainty are paramount—and this is where bridging really comes into its own, which in turn has caused it to be increasingly seen as a mainstream solution to help prevent a deal from collapsing.”
