Our Team
Joshua Hughes-Jones
Bridging & Commercial Broker Manager
Josh is the person our introducers ask for when a case has to complete. He is our most technical broker on bridging and commercial lending — and his job isn't to find a lender who will look at your case. It's to find the one most likely to see it through to completion, which is a different and usually more valuable question.
Phone
029 2167 0142Office
89 Cardiff Road, Cardiff CF15 7PL
How Josh works
Placing a case with the lender most likely to complete comes down to three things.
Knowing what each lender actually likes
Criteria documents tell you what a lender says it will do. Josh knows what its underwriters genuinely get comfortable with: which property types cause a pause, which exit strategies get accepted, which structures create work at legals. That knowledge only comes from placing cases with the same desks repeatedly, and from being straight with them about what is on the file.
Packaging a case so underwriting runs, not stalls
Most bridging delays aren't credit decisions. They're information gaps — an exit that hasn't been evidenced, a company structure the underwriter has to query. Josh anticipates those before submission, so the case moves in one direction.
Being reachable
You get a decision-maker on the phone, not a case reference. If a case isn't fundable, Josh will tell you early and tell you why, rather than letting it drift.
On rate versus deliverability
Josh's view — and ours — is that the lowest headline rate is not always the right recommendation. A slightly higher rate with a lender that understands the security, moves at the pace the deal needs and delivers on the terms it issued will frequently cost your client less overall than a cheaper facility that stalls, needs an extension, or falls away at the last minute.
Where a lower rate is genuinely deliverable, that is what we'll place. Where it isn't, we'll explain the trade-off and let you and your client decide.
What Josh specialises in
Unregulated bridging
Short-term facilities secured on investment and commercial property, where the borrower is not living in the security.
Auction & time-critical purchases
Completions inside the auction deadline, chain-break rescues, and any purchase where the date is fixed and non-negotiable.
Refurbishment & development finance
Light through to heavy refurbishment, conversions, and ground-up schemes — funded in tranches against a realistic build programme.
Development exit
Refinancing a completed or near-complete scheme off development terms, releasing equity and buying sales time.
Commercial & semi-commercial term
Longer-term lending against trading premises, mixed-use assets, and investment portfolios.
Limited company & SPV structures
Cases held through corporate vehicles — including layered ownership and structures that need explaining to an underwriter up front.
Got a case that has to complete? Call Josh today.
A ten-minute conversation is usually enough to tell you whether a case is fundable, which lender is the right starting point, and what underwriting will want to see.
Charles Frank Finance Limited · FCA FRN 624668 · 89 Cardiff Road, Cardiff CF15 7PL