Box Hill Finance Broking and Debt Consolidation

Box Hill has become one of the few genuine second centres in Melbourne. A large public and private hospital precinct anchors it, with medical and allied health practices clustered around them. On top of that sits a dense professional services layer, a substantial education presence, a serious retail and hospitality economy along Whitehorse Road and Station Street, and a run of high-rise development around the transport interchange.

A great deal of the local business base has been built by migrant families over the past few decades, frequently self-funded, frequently spanning more than one business and more than one property. That produces complex, multi-entity files that reward careful assembly and punish a rushed application.

The retail and hospitality economy along the main streets deserves separate mention. Margins are thin, leases are usually personally guaranteed, and fit-outs are expensive. For those operators the usable security is often a home rather than anything in the business, and that is worth putting on the table at the first call rather than three weeks in.

It is common here to find a trading company, a property-holding trust, a self-managed super fund and two or three individuals with interlocking guarantees. Lenders are not put off by this, but they do want it mapped clearly. Where it is presented as a coherent picture, assessment is smooth. Where it emerges piece by piece during assessment, the file slows down and sometimes falls over.

• A complete list of entities, who controls them and how they relate
• Every property held, with the entity that owns it and any existing security
• All guarantees given, including on leases and equipment
• Recent financials for each trading entity, and tax positions for all of them

Where family members from more than one household are involved, expect lenders to require independent legal advice for anyone providing security or a guarantee. It slows a file by days rather than weeks, and it is worth doing properly.

The hospital precinct supports a large number of specialists, general practices, dental surgeries, imaging and pathology businesses and allied health providers. Several lenders on the panel have terms built specifically for practices, and they treat practice income and goodwill differently from a general small business. Fit-out and equipment finance, premises purchases and refinancing existing practice facilities are all common work here.

Premises are the other recurring question. Whether to keep leasing, buy the suite, or hold it through a self-managed super fund is a decision for your accountant and financial adviser rather than for a broker. Once the structure is settled we arrange the lending to match it.