The Casebook
Field notes on European lending
Security mechanics · regulation · deals
Watson AM's working notes on European property lending: how the security behind a loan actually works, what regulation such as Basel III changes for borrowers, and the anatomy of funded deals the firm has arranged, filed across the eleven markets we work in.
Entries
Fund, platform or single file: three ways to hold property credit.
Family offices held 3% of their allocation in private debt in 2025, according to UBS. A pooled fund, an online platform and a single secured loan give the same asset class very different rights.
Market noteEurope agrees terms on one clock and closes on eleven others.
A third of changes to registered UK titles take more than three months, and Finland now averages three months for a mortgage. Why those queues rarely set the closing date across Europe, and which formal steps do.
Market noteA refinancing is a new loan written from scratch.
Property loans written when the ECB deposit rate stood at minus 0.50% are maturing after two rate rises in 2026. Why each one is priced as a new loan, and where the gap between the old balance and the new advance opens.
Case fileGeneva, 24 apartments: the facility that we untangled first.
A CHF 12'000'000 acquisition and construction facility at 25% LTV, in a canton with 0.31% vacancy, after almost two years of searching. What had to be resolved before investors saw the file.
Market noteEurope needs two million homes a year, and most of the money is private.
The EU's Affordable Housing Plan targets more than two million homes a year and a 60-day permit cap. Its own researchers put the annual investment gap near EUR 150bn, which is where private capital comes in.
ExplainerThe Schuldbrief: the instrument a Swiss mortgage travels in.
Swiss real-estate security lives in a certificate that carries both the claim and the lien. How a mortgage certificate is created under art. 842, its paper and register forms, and why investors hold title to it.
ExplainerInside the weeks from mandate to funding.
Indicative terms come inside 72 hours, and funding follows the mandate by 58 days on average. What the nine diligence steps spend that calendar on, and why prepared files run faster.
ExplainerEvery secured loan is underwritten from its exit.
An exit strategy is the identified source of repayment: sale, refinancing, or cash flow. Why tenor follows the exit, and what Europe's EUR 86bn refinancing gap taught lenders about testing it.
ExplainerLoan-to-value measures the distance between a loan and a loss.
A 60% LTV leaves four tenths of the property's value between the investor and a fall in price. How the ratio is built, why the valuation is its soft half, and how a median LTV of 65% reads in practice.
ExplainerWhen a loan stops performing, the case moves to the enforcement office.
Swiss law channels a defaulted secured loan into supervised realisation, normally a public auction, with proceeds paid out in register order. The route, the rules against self-help, and what decides recovery.
ExplainerA promise made with a bank's own balance sheet.
A bank guarantee pays on a compliant call, independent of the loan behind it. What the instrument adds above a mortgage and a personal guarantee, and why its wording decides what it is worth.
ExplainerFirst rank: the two words that decide who is paid first.
A first-rank mortgage puts the investor first in the queue when a property's value is turned into money. How rank works in the land register, what it protects against, and why it's read together with loan-to-value.
ExplainerThe personal guarantee: what a signature adds to a registered mortgage.
The mortgage secures the asset; the guarantee reaches the person behind the borrower. Why investors take both, what makes a guarantee enforceable, and where it fails.
ExplainerWhat a conditions precedent list actually contains.
A conditions precedent list is what a borrower must satisfy before an investor releases funds: clean title, registered security, signed guarantees, insurance in force. What sits on it, and where it fails.
Case fileAnatomy of a 20-year property refinancing in Denmark.
A maturing property loan in Greater Copenhagen needed a twenty-year horizon rather than another bridge. How the refinancing was structured and secured against a first-rank mortgage.
Market noteApproved but not built. Europe's stalled housing pipeline.
Germany ended 2025 with 760'700 approved homes still unbuilt. As permits hold and completions fall to a thirteen-year low, the binding constraint on European housing has shifted from planning to funding.
Market noteWhat the new Basel III rules mean for European property borrowers.
The final phase of Basel III is now law across Europe. Tougher capital rules raise the cost of a bank loan secured against property, and push the complex, mid-market deals a developer needs towards lenders that don't carry the same charge.
Market noteWhat the UBS and Credit Suisse merger changed for European property lending.
Three years on, the rescue of Credit Suisse has left Europe one fewer large balance sheet. Tighter capital rules from 2027 push complex, mid-market property deals towards non-bank and private credit lenders.
Market noteRates just turned. What that does to a developer's window.
The ECB lifted rates for the first time since 2023 and the SNB held at 0%. When the path turns, a slow lender stops being an inconvenience and becomes a cost. Why a clear path to funding matters more than a headline rate.