Fees & engagement
You should know how your adviser is paid.
We are a paid advisory firm, not a free introduction service. Here is the model in full. The figures for your mandate are quoted in writing before any work starts — and they do not move once the engagement letter is signed.
Stage one
Eligibility assessment
Free · 15 minutes
Your requirement, your last financials in outline, the security available. You leave with a plain answer on what is raisable and on what basis — including, when it applies, that you should wait or borrow less.
Stage two
Appraisal retainer
Quoted in writing
Covers the work that changes the outcome: financial SWOT, instrument design, end-use justification, CMA data, projections, DSCR and ratio workings, project report where the mandate needs one, and the documentation audit. Scope and figure are both fixed in the engagement letter.
Stage three
Success fee on sanction
Scaled to the mandate
Payable when the facility is sanctioned, sized to the ticket and the complexity of the arrangement — a single-lender working capital limit and a consortium project mandate are not the same job and are not priced as though they were.
What the fee buys
Nine named deliverables, listed in full on the method page. If any adviser — including us — cannot tell you what documents leave their office on your mandate, there is nothing to compare and nothing to hold them to.
See the deliverables →What we will not do
We do not quote fees verbally, we do not revise them mid-file, and we do not charge for an introduction dressed up as advice. Where a lender pays us a distribution fee on your sanction, it is disclosed in the engagement letter rather than left for you to infer.
Common questions
Why do you charge when a bank pays distributors anyway?
Because the two things are not the same work. A distributor forwards an application. What we do — the financial SWOT, the CMA data, the project report, the DSCR modelling, the end-use note, the documentation audit — is appraisal work, and it is what changes the outcome of a file. Advisory that is paid only by the lender is advisory that answers to the lender.
When is the fee payable?
The engagement letter splits it: a retainer for the appraisal work, payable as that work is done, and a success fee on sanction. Both figures are fixed before anything starts.
Is the first conversation chargeable?
No. The 15-minute eligibility assessment is free and ends with a plain answer. If we take the mandate, you get a written proposal — we do not begin file work on an unpriced engagement.
What if the loan is not sanctioned?
The success fee is exactly that — contingent on sanction. The retainer covers work already performed, which is why it is quoted against a defined scope rather than open-ended.
Do you take money from lenders as well?
Where a lender pays a distribution fee on a sanction, that is disclosed to you in the engagement letter. You should never have to guess how your adviser is paid.
Ask what it would cost on your file.
The assessment is free and the proposal is written. Nothing starts before you have both.