A £190m London mansion sale has provided a useful illustration of something that matters far beyond the ultra-prime end of the market: the ownership structure visible to a member of the public can be very different from the information a lender needs before advancing money against the property.
The Financial Times has identified Chinese entrepreneur Leon Li, founder of crypto exchange Huobi, as the seller of The Holme, a 40-bedroom mansion in Regent's Park recently sold for approximately £190m. Li reportedly purchased the property for £139m in 2024, while the buyer in the latest transaction is believed to be Abbas Sajwani, son of Emirati billionaire Hussain Sajwani.
The more relevant point for property finance is not the seller's business background. It is the way his interest in the property was reportedly held. According to the FT, the structure involved a trust and a UK subsidiary of corporate-services firm Zedra, meaning the individual's connection with the property was not obvious from an ordinary public search.
There is no suggestion that using such an ownership structure is itself improper. Trusts, companies and fiduciary arrangements are widely used by internationally wealthy families for legitimate reasons including succession planning, governance, privacy and professionally advised tax structuring.
The financing issue is different. A lender cannot stop at the name appearing on a public record. It needs to understand the structure sufficiently to know who the borrower is, who ultimately owns or controls the relevant entities, who can grant security and whether the lender is comfortable with every relevant jurisdiction and legal relationship.
What Does the £190m Transaction Highlight?
The Financial Times reports that The Holme, a 40-bedroom Regent's Park mansion, has sold for approximately £190m, after being acquired for a reported £139m in 2024.
The FT identified Leon Li as the seller and reported that his interest was held through a structure involving a trust and a UK subsidiary of corporate-services firm Zedra.
The case demonstrates why public visibility and lender due diligence are different standards. A structure can be lawful and professionally administered while still requiring substantially more information before a lender can approve a mortgage or other secured facility.
Public Transparency and Lending Due Diligence Serve Different Purposes
The UK has increased transparency around overseas ownership of land through the Register of Overseas Entities, which came into force in August 2022.
Overseas legal entities that own or wish to buy, sell or transfer qualifying UK land generally need to register with Companies House and provide information about their registrable beneficial owners or managing officers.
That is a public-transparency regime. Mortgage underwriting has a different purpose.
A lender needs to establish that the person or entity asking for money has the legal authority to borrow, that the security can be taken correctly, that beneficial ownership is understood and that the proposed relationship complies with the lender's own credit, jurisdictional and financial-crime policies.
Those requirements do not disappear because a property or company has complied with a public registration regime.
The Question Is Not Simply: “Who Appears on the Register?”
The lender's questions are more detailed: Who owns the borrower? Who controls it? Who ultimately benefits? Who can authorise the borrowing? Who can grant the security? Where are those parties resident? And does the lender's policy permit the complete structure?
That can turn an apparently straightforward £5m London mortgage into a private-client structuring exercise even where affordability is exceptionally strong.
Trust Information Is Not Automatically Displayed on the Public Register
Companies House guidance illustrates the distinction clearly.
Where a registrable beneficial owner of an overseas entity is a trustee, the overseas entity can be required to submit significant information concerning the trust. That can include details of the trust, trustees and certain individuals or legal entities involved as beneficiaries, settlors, grantors or interested persons.
However, Companies House states that trust information is not normally shown on the public Register of Overseas Entities.
That does not mean the information does not exist or that it is outside the transparency regime. Since 31 August 2025, third parties have also been able to request certain trust information from Companies House in prescribed circumstances.
The important point for borrowers is that a lender carrying out its own due diligence may need information that an estate agent, member of the public or ordinary company search does not reveal immediately.
A £5m Property Can Produce the Same Structural Questions
The Holme is an exceptional property, but the financing issue applies at much lower values.
Consider an internationally mobile family purchasing a £6m London home. The proposed structure might involve a property-owning company, an overseas holding company, a family trust, professional trustees in Jersey, beneficiaries in Britain and the UAE and investment assets held with a Swiss private bank.
There may be entirely legitimate reasons why the family's lawyers and tax advisers consider that structure appropriate.
But the mortgage lender still needs to decide whether it can lend into it.
One private bank may be comfortable with the arrangement because it regularly underwrites trusts and international private-client structures. Another lender may accept the company but not a trust above it. A conventional residential lender may require the property to be owned and mortgaged personally.
The family's net worth can therefore be more than sufficient while the lender universe remains determined by the structure.
Ownership Can Matter More Than Affordability
This is an important distinction in HNW and UHNW property finance.
A conventional mortgage case is often dominated by affordability: income, expenditure, term and the size of the proposed monthly payment.
On a complex private-client transaction, affordability may be the least controversial part of the case.
The borrower could have tens of millions of pounds in assets. The difficult questions may instead be about legal ownership, trustee powers, the source of the deposit, the relationship between companies, where directors and beneficiaries reside and whether the lender can obtain the security it requires.
That is why an apparently low-LTV mortgage can still require detailed structuring and underwriting.
The Legal Owner and the Economic Family Behind It May Be Different
A property company can appear as the registered owner while sitting within a much wider family structure.
The shares may be owned by another company. That holding company may ultimately be controlled by trustees. The trust may exist for the benefit of family members in several countries.
That does not make the structure unusual in sophisticated private wealth. It does mean the lender needs to understand how control and authority flow through it.
If the property company is to borrow, who has authority to approve that borrowing? Can the company legally grant the required mortgage? Are there restrictions elsewhere in the structure? Will trustees or related individuals need to provide guarantees or acknowledgements?
These are legal questions for the client's lawyers and the lender's legal advisers, but they can directly determine whether the proposed finance is practical.
The Finance Should Be Tested Before the Structure Is Locked Down
The ownership structure should be designed by the client's qualified legal and tax advisers, not by the mortgage broker.
But financing should not be treated as an afterthought.
A structure might achieve the client's succession, governance or tax objectives perfectly and still produce an extremely narrow lender universe. In some cases that may be acceptable. The family may value the structure more highly than obtaining the cheapest possible mortgage.
The problem arises when nobody discovers the finance consequence until the property is under offer and completion is approaching.
That can leave the buyer choosing between changing the structure, accepting materially more expensive debt, injecting more cash or delaying the transaction.
Testing financeability while the structure is still being finalised can identify those trade-offs early.
A Structure Chart Can Save Weeks of Misunderstanding
For complex transactions, one of the most useful documents can be remarkably simple: a clear ownership chart.
It does not need to replace legal documents or due diligence. Its purpose is to allow the lender and advisers to understand the parties involved before detailed underwriting begins.
| Structure Information | Why the Lender May Need It |
|---|---|
| Property-owning entity | Establishes who holds the asset over which the lender expects security. |
| Proposed borrower | Identifies the party legally responsible for the debt. |
| Shareholding chain | Shows how ownership passes through any parent or holding companies. |
| Ultimate beneficial owners | Allows the lender to understand the individuals ultimately owning or controlling relevant entities. |
| Trustees and trust relationship | Clarifies where a trust sits in the structure and which professional parties exercise relevant powers. |
| Guarantors | Identifies individuals or entities that may support the borrowing separately from the property owner. |
| Countries of residence | Jurisdictional appetite differs materially between lenders and can affect eligibility. |
| Existing security | Shows whether another bank already has claims over the property, shares, investments or other relevant assets. |
Private Banks Can Be Better Equipped for Multi-Entity Structures
Private banks can have a significant advantage where the client's ownership and wealth arrangements extend beyond a standard mortgage application.
Their underwriting can be relationship-led and may take account of the wider family balance sheet, investment assets, offshore structures and international income.
Some banks also have internal expertise accustomed to working with trustees, professional fiduciaries and international holding companies.
That can make them a natural route for complex prime-property debt.
It does not mean a private bank will accept every structure. Each institution has its own acceptable jurisdictions, trust policies, credit appetite and relationship requirements, and some will want substantial assets under management alongside the property loan.
The right bank therefore depends on the precise ownership arrangement as much as the value of the property.
Specialist Lenders Can Sometimes Offer a Different Route
Private banking is not the only option.
Specialist lenders can sometimes accommodate overseas borrowers, corporate ownership or other features that fall outside conventional mortgage criteria without requiring the client to establish a full private-banking relationship.
The trade-off can be different pricing, leverage or documentation requirements.
For some clients, keeping investment assets with their existing wealth manager and using a specialist property lender is preferable to moving substantial assets to a private bank. For others, consolidating the banking, investment and property debt relationship makes sense.
The point is that the lender should be selected around the client's actual structure rather than selecting the bank first and trying to force the structure into its policy.
Public Privacy Does Not Mean Private Anonymity to the Lender
International families can understandably value discretion around ownership and wealth.
However, a structure that provides a degree of privacy from ordinary public searches does not mean the borrower can remain unidentified to a regulated lender.
Lenders and their professional advisers will ordinarily require sufficient information to understand beneficial ownership, control, source of funds, source of wealth and relevant parties before completing substantial secured lending.
That is a fundamentally different standard from whether every detail appears publicly on Companies House or a land record.
For a borrower, this makes preparation important. Complex due diligence is considerably easier when ownership records, trust information, corporate documents and advisers are already organised before a transaction becomes urgent.
Privacy and Financeability Are Not Opposites
A family can have legitimate reasons for using companies, trusts and professional fiduciaries without wanting every detail of its affairs visible through a simple public search.
The financing consequence is that the structure still needs to be sufficiently transparent to the lender, its lawyers and other regulated professionals for them to understand exactly whom they are dealing with.
The Register of Overseas Entities Does Not Replace Lender Checks
Companies House requires overseas entities dealing in UK land to provide information about registrable beneficial owners or managing officers, with verification checks carried out by a UK-regulated agent.
Most information submitted about overseas entities and beneficial owners is publicly available, subject to specified exclusions and protection provisions.
Trust information is treated differently. Where relevant, extensive information may need to be submitted to Companies House, but it is not automatically displayed on the public register.
Companies House introduced a process from August 2025 allowing third parties to request trust information in certain circumstances.
For a mortgage lender, however, neither public access nor the existence of the register removes the need for its own assessment. The lender still has to satisfy its policies and legal requirements for the particular transaction.
A Company Above the Property Company Can Change the Answer
The presence of companies at different levels of an ownership chain is another reason to establish the structure early.
A lender may be comfortable lending directly to a UK SPV owning a prime investment property but less comfortable if the SPV is owned by a company in a jurisdiction outside its accepted list.
Another lender may accept both companies but require personal guarantees from the ultimate owners. A third may prefer a different borrowing entity entirely.
The underlying property and LTV could be identical in all three scenarios.
What changes is the legal and jurisdictional framework surrounding the borrower.
Refinancing Existing Trust or Company-Owned Property Can Be Just as Complex
This is not only an acquisition issue.
A family may have owned a London property for years through a professionally advised structure and now need to refinance an expiring private-bank facility.
The existing lender may no longer have appetite for the jurisdiction involved, may require more assets under management or may have changed its credit policy since the original loan was arranged.
The family can therefore have a perfectly performing £5m property loan and still find that refinancing requires a completely new analysis of the ownership structure.
Starting that review before maturity becomes particularly important where several entities or professional trustees need to supply documentation or approve new security arrangements.
Changes to the Structure Can Trigger a Finance Review
The property itself may not change, but the surrounding family structure can.
Trustees may change. Beneficiaries may become resident in different countries. A new holding company may be inserted following professional advice. Family members may relocate. Existing shareholders may transfer interests as part of succession planning.
Any of those events can potentially affect how a lender views the borrowing arrangement.
That does not mean every structural change requires a new mortgage. It does mean borrowers and advisers should consider whether existing financing assumptions still match the legal ownership and control arrangements.
The Source of the Deposit Can Travel Through the Structure Too
For an international acquisition, the funds arriving at the solicitor may not come directly from the proposed borrower.
Capital can be distributed from a trust, contributed by a parent company, transferred from another family member or drawn from investments held elsewhere in the structure.
Those routes can all be legitimate. They can also create additional questions about source of funds, source of wealth and whether contributions are gifts, loans, shareholder capital or something else.
The lender and lawyers need the movement of money to be clear enough to understand both the transaction and any obligations created between the parties.
This is another reason why complex private-client transactions are often easier when the mortgage adviser, lawyer, tax adviser, fiduciary and wealth team engage early rather than sequentially.
Buying Agents Can Encounter the Structure Before the Lender Does
Prime buying agents may begin working with an international family months before finance is discussed.
The client can appear capable of paying cash and therefore finance is not necessarily considered during the initial property search.
Later, the family decides that retaining £3m or £5m of liquidity is preferable and asks for mortgage finance after a property has already been identified.
If the ownership structure is straightforward, that may cause little difficulty. If it involves trusts, companies and multiple jurisdictions, the finance timetable can be considerably longer than expected.
Establishing the broad financeability of the proposed structure before a purchase becomes time-sensitive can strengthen the buyer's negotiating position and reduce execution risk.
Private-Client Lawyers Have a Natural Role in the Finance Process
The legal adviser and mortgage adviser should remain clearly within their own disciplines.
A private-client lawyer may determine, alongside tax and fiduciary specialists, that a trust or corporate arrangement is appropriate for the family's wider objectives.
Willow's role is not to challenge the legal or tax rationale for that decision. It is to establish what the debt market does with the result.
If only a small group of lenders can accommodate the structure, that is useful information for the legal team and client to know before contractual deadlines are fixed.
Conversely, where several private banks and specialist lenders are comfortable with the proposed arrangement, the family can proceed knowing that the ownership decision has not unintentionally closed off financing options.
The Best Time to Discover a Lending Restriction Is Before Exchange
Complex property transactions become expensive to change once contracts, ownership entities and completion timetables have been fixed.
A lender declining late because of a trust, offshore holding company or unacceptable jurisdiction can leave very few alternatives.
That can force the client to inject additional cash, restructure the purchase, seek expensive short-term finance or renegotiate the timetable with the seller.
None of those outcomes is inevitable. The point of testing the structure early is to expose potential restrictions while the client still has choices.
How Willow Private Finance Can Help
Willow Private Finance works with HNW and UHNW borrowers, international families, trustees, companies and family offices where UK property sits within a more complex ownership or wealth structure.
For these cases, the starting point is often not an affordability calculator. It is understanding exactly who owns what and how the proposed lender would take security.
We can review a structure chart showing the property-owning entity, proposed borrower, shareholders, trustees, ultimate beneficial owners, guarantors, relevant countries of residence, existing security and wider private-bank relationships before approaching the lender market.
That allows us to identify private banks and specialist lenders capable of considering the actual structure rather than repeatedly approaching institutions that are unable to lend to it.
Legal, tax, trust and ownership advice remains with the client's qualified professional advisers. Willow's role is to establish whether the proposed UK property debt can work alongside the structure they design.
Buying or Refinancing £2m+ UK Property Through a Trust or Company?
A sophisticated ownership structure can work perfectly for a family's legal, succession or tax objectives and still produce a very different mortgage market from personal ownership.
Willow Private Finance can map the ownership and borrowing structure before lender placement, identifying private banks and specialist lenders that can accommodate the actual entities, trustees, beneficial owners and jurisdictions involved.
Explore Complex & UHNW Finance →Frequently Asked Questions
Key questions for international families and professional advisers dealing with UK property held through trusts, companies or other private-client structures.
Why can lender due diligence go beyond what appears on public property or company records?
A lender needs to establish the borrower, beneficial ownership, control, source of funds and wealth, authority to borrow, security route and relevant trust or company relationships. Some information required for that assessment may not be visible on ordinary public searches.
Can UK property owned through a trust or company be mortgaged?
Potentially. Private banks and specialist lenders can consider some trust, corporate and multi-entity ownership structures, but lender appetite varies substantially. The proposed borrower, property-owning entity, trustees, beneficial owners, guarantors and jurisdictions involved all need to fit the lender's criteria.
Is trust information on the Register of Overseas Entities publicly visible?
Not automatically. Companies House requires certain trust information where a registrable beneficial owner is a trustee, but trust information is not normally displayed on the public Register of Overseas Entities. Since August 2025, third parties can request certain trust information from Companies House in prescribed circumstances.
When should an international buyer test whether an ownership structure is financeable?
Ideally before the ownership structure and purchase timetable are finalised. Legal and tax advisers should determine the appropriate structure for the client, while the proposed structure can be tested separately against lenders to establish whether the desired debt is realistically available.
What information is useful before arranging finance for a complex ownership structure?
A simple ownership chart can identify the property-owning entity, borrower, ultimate beneficial owners, trustees, beneficiaries where relevant, guarantors, countries of residence, existing security and relevant private-bank or investment relationships. This can help determine which lenders are able to consider the structure.