In 2025, more UK and international buyers than ever are “investment rich” rather than salary led. They hold substantial cash reserves, gilt and bond ladders, diversified equity portfolios and company treasury balances—but often far lower taxable income than a traditional high-street borrower.

On paper, these clients look exceptionally strong. In reality, many still hit a wall when they try to secure a mortgage through mainstream channels. Affordability engines are built around regular employment income and strict stress tests, not around strong balance sheets, liquidity and long-term wealth. The result can be frustratingly conservative loan offers that simply do not reflect a client’s true financial strength

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Private banks, specialist lenders and selected high-street underwriters are increasingly comfortable taking a more nuanced view. For the right profile, liquid assets can support higher income multiples, more flexible repayment structures, or even lending that is explicitly backed by an investment portfolio. We explore some of these themes in our articles on using investment portfolios to secure large mortgage loans in 2025 and how private banks are underwriting mortgages in 2025 using investment portfolios and asset-based lending.

Willow Private Finance operates daily in this space, working with investors who want to preserve their strategies, minimise unnecessary asset sales and still unlock meaningful leverage for UK property. This guide explains how liquid assets are viewed in 2025, where they materially enhance borrowing power, and how a broker can position your profile to achieve the outcome you want.

Market Context in 2025 for Liquid Investors

The 2025 mortgage landscape is shaped by a few competing forces. On one hand, regulatory scrutiny and capital requirements mean lenders must be able to demonstrate prudent, stress-tested affordability. On the other, competition for high-quality, high-net-worth borrowers is intense. Banks and specialist lenders do not want to lose strong clients simply because traditional income metrics fail to tell the whole story.

Interest rates remain higher than the ultra-low environment of the previous decade, even if the direction of travel is gradually easing. This makes borrowing costs more visible in cash-flow terms and increases the importance of robust exit strategies. For borrowers with significant liquidity, that can actually be an advantage: lenders can see real buffers against rate shocks, refinance risk and unexpected one-off costs.

At the same time, capital markets remain an important benchmark. For many sophisticated investors, the opportunity cost of selling a well-constructed, long-term portfolio simply to raise a cash deposit or reduce loan size is unappealing. They are looking instead for ways to use their liquid balance sheet intelligently—whether by pledging assets, drawing Lombard or credit lines, or leveraging portfolios in a measured way. Our guide on using credit lines to buy UK property in 2025 sits alongside this topic.

In this environment, lenders that understand liquid wealth have an edge. They can win and retain valuable relationships by offering lending solutions that work with a client’s overall wealth strategy, rather than forcing them into crude “sell-to-deposit” decisions.

How Liquid Assets Are Treated in UK Mortgage Lending

Liquid assets typically fall into a few broad categories: cash and near-cash reserves, money market funds, government or high-grade corporate bonds, and listed equity portfolios held personally, in joint names, or via corporate and trust structures. Each of these is viewed slightly differently by lenders, depending on volatility, ease of realisation and concentration risk.

For mainstream lenders, the most straightforward use of liquidity is still as deposit or fee funding. A strong cash position can help secure a competitive loan-to-value, demonstrate resilience and improve overall credit appetite. That said, for many investors this is only the starting point.

Private banks and certain specialist lenders may go further. They might treat a sizeable, diversified portfolio as an additional comfort factor and increase the multiple of income they are willing to lend. Others will create formally linked arrangements: for example, a mortgage agreed on the basis that a specific portfolio is pledged or that a Lombard facility is in place. You can find a more technical overview of these structures in our article on securities backed lending in 2025.

The key point is that, in the right hands, liquid assets become part of an integrated risk picture. Lenders are not just asking “Can this borrower afford the monthly payment from income?” They are also asking “If something changes, is there demonstrable capacity—through liquidity and assets—to support the loan or exit gracefully?”

What Lenders Look For When You Hold Significant Liquidity

While every lender has its own playbook, there are some consistent themes in how underwriters evaluate borrowers with strong liquid positions.

First, they will want to understand provenance. How were the assets accumulated? Are they the proceeds of a recent liquidity event, long-term investing, inheritance or a combination? Clean, well-documented wealth, ideally supported by portfolio statements and historic accounts, is far easier to work with.

Second, they focus on composition. A diversified portfolio of blue-chip equities, investment-grade bonds and cash is more attractive from a lending perspective than a single concentrated stock position or highly speculative holdings. Where portfolios are volatile or concentrated, lenders may adjust the “recognised” value or limit the proportion of borrowing that can be supported by those assets.

Third, they assess accessibility. Are the assets held in a personal account, or locked inside pension wrappers, trusts or corporate entities with restrictions? Are there any tax implications, early exit charges or other frictional costs that would affect the borrower’s willingness to liquidate if required? These questions go directly to the credibility of any proposed exit or contingency plan.

Finally, lenders look at alignment: does the level of leverage requested make sense relative to overall net worth and liquidity? For many of our clients, the question is not whether the bank can advance a particular sum, but whether doing so at a given loan-to-value and repayment structure still sits comfortably within their own risk appetite. Our broader piece, how wealthy buyers borrow using assets instead of income in 2025, explores that balance in more detail.

Challenges Faced by Cash-Rich, Income-Light Borrowers

Despite the strength of their position, investors with significant liquid assets can encounter very specific obstacles when dealing with mainstream lenders. One common issue is the disconnect between reported taxable income and real economic capacity. A tax-efficient drawdown strategy may look modest on a payslip or tax return, even though the underlying wealth is substantial.

Another challenge is that some affordability calculators simply are not configured to credit liquid assets meaningfully. A bank might be intellectually comfortable that a client with a seven-figure portfolio is low risk, but the automated system may refuse to stretch beyond a standard income multiple. Without the right lender or the right presentation, the result can be an unhelpful “computer says no” outcome.

Timing can also work against investors. Around a major liquidity event, such as a business sale or portfolio restructuring, documentation may not yet reflect the new reality, or there may be temporary volatility in asset values. Meanwhile, the property transaction often has its own deadlines.

Finally, borrowers rightly worry about over-pledging assets or exposing their portfolio to unnecessary margin call risk. Using liquidity to enhance borrowing power is attractive; tying up too much of it, or agreeing to terms that could force a disruptive asset sale at exactly the wrong moment, is not. Our article on how wealthy buyers raise cash for UK property without selling investments looks at these trade-offs in more depth.

Smart Strategies to Turn Cash, Bonds and Portfolios Into Borrowing Power

The most effective strategies start with the end in mind. What is the long-term plan for the property? Is it a primary residence, a pied-à-terre, an investment or a bolt-on to an existing portfolio? What level of leverage feels appropriate in the context of your wider wealth and risk appetite? Once those questions are answered, structures can be built around them.

For some investors, the simplest strategy is to blend a traditional mortgage with modest, carefully structured portfolio leverage. A bank might agree a standard property mortgage at a conservative loan-to-value, supported by income and basic affordability tests, and then provide a separate Lombard or securities-backed facility for deposit top-up or associated costs. Our piece on Lombard lending explained: the 2025 UK guide for HNW clients covers these mechanics.

In other cases, a private bank may be willing to treat the portfolio itself as a core part of the underwriting and offer a higher income multiple or partly interest-only structure on the basis that liquid assets are formally recognised in the credit assessment. This can be particularly effective where the borrower has variable or “lumpy” income, but a long track record of successful investing and prudent risk management.

A further strategy is to use liquidity to de-risk the lender’s position in other ways. That might mean keeping a certain amount of cash on deposit with the bank, pre-funding an interest reserve for a period, or agreeing to partial capital reductions at defined milestones. For the right profile, these concessions can translate into more generous terms, while still leaving the core investment strategy intact. The art lies in knowing which lenders respond to which levers—and where the line sits between productive structuring and unnecessary complexity.

Hypothetical Scenario: How Different Investor Profiles Use Liquidity

Although every case is bespoke, a few recurring patterns appear across our client base.

One is the entrepreneur or company director who draws a modest salary and dividends, but has accumulated significant retained profits or investment portfolios over time. Their taxable income can look surprisingly low, yet they may hold multi-million-pound liquidity. Here, the solution often involves a lender who is prepared to take a holistic view of company accounts, portfolios and personal wealth, rather than focusing narrowly on last year’s drawings.

Another common profile is the globally mobile professional or family office that manages large, multi-asset portfolios across several jurisdictions. Income flows may be diversified and tax-efficient, but not always straightforward to evidence in a way that satisfies high-street criteria. In these cases, lenders who are already familiar with cross-border wealth structures, and who are comfortable taking security over portfolios, can be crucial.

A third scenario is the long-term investor who wants to retain core equity or bond holdings but is open to measured, temporary leverage. They might use a Lombard line or securities-backed facility to fund a high-value deposit or short-term bridging need, with a view to either refinancing onto a traditional term mortgage or repaying part of the borrowing on their own timetable. Our detailed guide to securities backed lending in 2025 outlines how this can dovetail with long-term wealth planning.

Across all of these examples, the constant is that liquid assets are not treated as a blunt instrument. They are integrated into a broader lending, tax and investment conversation—so that property finance supports, rather than undermines, the overall strategy.

Outlook for 2025 and Beyond: Liquidity, Leverage and Risk Management

Looking ahead, it is reasonable to expect that lenders’ willingness to recognise liquid assets will continue to grow, particularly at the private bank and upper specialist levels of the market. Competition for high-quality clients remains intense, and relationship banking is increasingly built around the integration of lending, investment management and broader advice.

At the same time, regulators are unlikely to relax their expectations around affordability, stress testing and responsible lending. Lenders will still need to demonstrate that borrowers can withstand interest rate shocks and have credible contingency plans. That makes the quality, documentation and stability of your liquid assets more important than ever.

For investors, the message is clear. Liquidity is a powerful tool in mortgage negotiations, but only when it is presented and structured correctly. Poorly framed, it can be ignored or undervalued by underwriters; properly marshalled, it can transform your borrowing options and help secure properties that would otherwise sit out of reach. Working with an adviser who understands both property finance and capital markets is therefore becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity.

How Willow Private Finance Can Help

Willow Private Finance specialises in complex, high-value and wealth-led lending. Many of our clients are investors, entrepreneurs and international families whose balance sheets are dominated by liquid assets, portfolios and corporate holdings rather than straightforward payroll income. We understand how different lenders interpret cash, bonds and securities, and how to present those positions so that they enhance, rather than complicate, a mortgage application.

Because we are independent and whole-of-market, we can compare private banks, specialist lenders and selected high-street providers side by side. In practice, that means identifying which lenders will genuinely credit your liquidity, which will offer securities-backed or Lombard options, and where the best trade-off lies between pricing, flexibility and documentation. Whether you are considering a straightforward mortgage supported by strong liquidity, or a more bespoke arrangement linking portfolios and property lending, we can help you navigate the options with clarity and confidence.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: Do liquid assets always increase how much I can borrow in 2025?
Liquid assets usually strengthen your overall profile, but the impact on borrowing power depends on the lender. Some will simply take comfort from liquidity; others may formally link portfolios to the loan or increase income multiples. A broker who knows which lenders genuinely credit liquid wealth can make a significant difference.

Q2: Will I have to pledge my investment portfolio to the bank to get a mortgage?
Not necessarily. In some cases, lenders are comfortable simply recognising your liquid assets in their affordability and risk assessment without taking formal security. In others, especially where you want higher leverage or a more flexible structure, a pledge or Lombard arrangement may be required. The right structure depends on your risk appetite and long-term plans.

Q3: Is it better to sell investments for a larger deposit or use securities-backed lending?
Selling investments can reduce leverage and simplify underwriting, but it may crystallise tax and disrupt long-term strategy. Securities-backed lending allows you to retain market exposure, but introduces its own risks and requires careful margin management. The best approach is usually a balance between the two, tailored to your portfolio, time horizon and property goals.

Q4: How do lenders view cash held in different currencies or offshore accounts?
Most lenders are comfortable with well-documented, legitimate offshore or multi-currency holdings, but they will factor in FX risk, local regulations and the ease of repatriation. Some private banks are better equipped than mainstream lenders to work with complex, multi-jurisdiction portfolios and may be more flexible on how they credit that liquidity.

Q5: Can I rely on my liquid assets instead of traditional income for UK mortgage approval?
In some high-net-worth frameworks, yes—particularly with private banks that operate net-worth or asset-based lending models. However, even these lenders will usually want to see some level of recurring income or credible plans for interest servicing and eventual repayment. A pure “assets only” approach is rare and tends to be highly bespoke.



Q6: What documents will I need to evidence my liquid assets?
Typically, lenders will ask for recent portfolio valuations, historic statements, bank statements for cash holdings, and—where relevant—company or trust accounts. In more complex situations, they may also request letters from wealth managers or accountants to confirm ownership, control and any restrictions on access.

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