Can a GP get a 100% commercial mortgage?
Yes, in some cases. Our commercial mortgages page gives 75% of value as the typical maximum for commercial property, and for most businesses that holds. GP practices are an exception because of where the income comes from. Most practice income is paid under an NHS contract, and in England premises costs are often met through notional or actual rent reimbursement from the NHS. A lender looking at a surgery is lending against a public-sector income stream with a long record of being paid.
That is why some specialist healthcare lending teams will consider up to the full value of the surgery, or the full cost of a partnership share. The conditions are what make it possible: the practice needs to be profitable after partners’ drawings, the contract needs to be secure, the partnership agreement needs to be current and signed, and rent reimbursement needs to cover a meaningful part of the repayments. Where any of those is weak, expect the lender to ask for a deposit or extra security.
Which lenders lend to GP practices?
As at October 2026, GP practice lending comes from three broad types of lender rather than from any one name:
- Specialist healthcare teams at the large banks. These lend most often to GP partnerships buying or refinancing their own premises, and are where the highest loan-to-values tend to come from.
- Challenger and specialist banks with a healthcare desk. Often more flexible on structure, for example a partnership with a recent change of partners or a practice that has merged.
- Commercial investment lenders. These lend to landlords and developers who own a surgery and lease it to a practice, rather than to the GPs themselves.
Which one fits depends on whether you are buying into an existing partnership, buying the building outright or refinancing. We are whole of market, so we approach the lenders whose current appetite matches the case.
How do lenders assess a GP practice?
Lenders read a GP practice like a business with an unusually reliable customer. The main things they look at are:
- Profit. Usually three years of partnership accounts, and each partner’s profit share after drawings.
- List size. The number of registered patients and whether it is growing, stable or falling.
- Rent reimbursement. Notional or actual rent paid by the NHS for the premises. In England notional rent is assessed by the District Valuer and reviewed every three years, and lenders want the latest figure.
- Partnership structure. A signed, current partnership deed, how the property is owned between partners, and what happens when someone leaves.
- CQC rating. A good rating is expected. A poor one raises questions about the contract.
Buying into a partnership v buying the premises
These are two different deals, and they are often confused.
Buying into a partnership usually means buying a share of the surgery building that the existing partners own, along with your share of the partnership capital. The goodwill of an NHS GP practice cannot be sold, so you are paying for property and capital, not for the patient list. In practice the existing premises loan is often restructured so the incoming partner takes on their share of the debt, rather than raising a separate loan against part of a building.
Buying the premises means the practice, or the partners who will own the building, buys the whole surgery. The lender takes a charge over the whole property and assesses the whole practice’s income. Some practices keep property ownership separate from the partnership, so not every partner owns part of the building. That affects who borrows, who signs and who carries the risk.
What happens when a partner retires?
This is the last-partner-standing problem. When a partner who owns part of the building retires, their share has to be bought out. If a new partner buys it, the debt passes on. If nobody does, the remaining partners have to fund the buy-out themselves, and the premises loan and any lease obligations sit with fewer people. Repeat that a few times and the final partner can be left owning the building and carrying the debt alone.
With GP recruitment as difficult as it is, this is a real planning issue, not a theoretical one. The usual answers are to refinance so the remaining partners can buy the share, to bring in a new partner on clear terms, or to sell the building to an investor and lease it back. A lender will look hard at whether the smaller partnership can service the larger loan, so it pays to plan this before the retirement date, not after it.
How long does it take and what does it cost?
A straightforward GP premises purchase or refinance commonly takes two to three months. It takes longer where the partnership deed needs redrafting, where the District Valuer needs to reassess rent, or where several partners need their own legal advice.
Budget for a commercial valuation, your own and the lender’s legal costs, a lender arrangement fee, stamp duty on any purchase, and our fee. We typically charge £495 for arranging a mortgage, and up to 1% of the loan for more complex cases. We confirm the fee with you before we start.
