Bridging Finance for Builders Between Build Stages
When a builder's funding gap is a bridging loan rather than a construction facility, what secures it, and how a progress claim works as the exit.
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Build Stage Gaps · Progress Claims · Private Funding
The stage is done, the claim is lodged, and the money has not landed. Here is when that gap is a bridge, when it is a construction facility, and how a builder actually gets one funded.
Quick Answer
A builder's gap between finished work and a paid claim is usually a short term facility, not a construction facility. The test is whether you can name and date the money that repays it. Where you can, a private bridge fits. Where you cannot, it is the wrong instrument.
Also called: build stage bridge, progress claim funding.
Is your funding gap a bridge or a construction facility?
There are only two shapes a build stage gap can have, and the shape decides the product. Your gap is a bridge when the money that repays it already exists and simply has not arrived yet, and it is a construction facility when the money that repays it has to be built first. That single test does more work than any comparison of rates, because it decides which desk the request lands on and which credit policy it is read against.
A construction facility funds the programme. It is approved against a fixed price contract, a cost to complete, and a builder the funder is prepared to accept, then it releases money in stages as work is certified. A bridge does none of that. It advances once, sits behind or over registered property security, and waits for a single event: a certified claim being paid, a completed lot settling, or a longer facility landing. Lenders and brokers also call this a construction linked bridge, and the label matters far less than which of those two shapes your gap actually has.
The usual case is a builder mid programme who needs to fund the next stage's materials and labour while the last stage's claim sits with the principal. That is a timing problem with a named source of repayment, which is bridge territory. It is covered at the lane level in the bridging finance hub and at the business end in the guide to private bridging loans for business.
| Signal | A bridge fits | A construction facility fits |
|---|---|---|
| What the money does | Covers a gap you can name and date | Funds the build itself |
| How funds are released | One advance at settlement | Staged drawdowns against certified progress |
| What is underwritten | The exit and the security | The contract, the builder and the cost to complete |
| Who certifies | No certifier needed to release funds | A quantity surveyor certifies each stage |
| Typical term | Short, typically measured in months | Matched to the build programme |
| How it is repaid | A named event, such as a claim, a sale or a refinance | Practical completion, then a term facility |
| Where it breaks | The exit date slips past the term | Cost to complete no longer balances |
Which build stage gap are you actually funding?
Naming the gap precisely is what turns a vague cashflow request into a fundable one, because each gap has a different repayment event sitting behind it. Builders tend to arrive describing the symptom, which is an empty account, rather than the gap, which is a specific dollar figure between two specific dates.
The four that come up most often are the certified claim awaiting payment, the stage that has to start before the previous claim is paid, the retention held at practical completion, and the defects period holding the final release. The same facility is sometimes described as stage funding, because the money covers the space between two stages rather than the whole programme. Each one has a different lender answer, and mixing them in the one conversation is what gets a file declined for being unclear rather than for being weak.
Claim mechanics themselves, meaning what must be on a claim, how certification works, why a claim is short paid, and how a claim becomes a drawdown, all sit in the guide to progress claims and drawdowns. Retention and the defects liability period are handled in the guide to retention and defects liability. On this page they matter only as triggers, because each one either produces a usable exit date or it does not.
- Name the gap. Write down the single event that clears it, the date it is due and the party who owes it. If you cannot name all three, the request is not yet fundable.
- Pull the certification. Find the certificate, assessment or payment schedule that fixes the amount and the date, because that document is the exit.
- Check the title. Confirm which entity owns the property being offered as security, and whether the site itself is available at all.
- Test the term against the programme. Set the facility to the sequence the build is actually running to, not to the date on the original programme.
- Get the contract read. Have a solicitor read the payment, certification and dispute clauses before the facility is drawn, because those clauses decide whether the exit is enforceable.
What can a builder offer as security when the land is not theirs?
A builder secures a bridge against property the building entity or its directors actually own, which on a contract build is almost never the site. This is the point where most builder enquiries stop, and it is worth being blunt about it: a private funder is lending against registered real property, and work in progress on someone else's title is not that.
The first document a funder opens is the title search, not the contract. The usual answers are the builder's own home, an investment property, a completed lot still held in the entity, or a spec build that has reached lock up. Position matters less than equity: a second registered mortgage behind a bank first mortgage is routinely acceptable to private funders where there is headroom, and a caveat only arrangement is a narrower product with its own fit test, set out in the piece on a caveat loan bridge on a stretched progress payment.
Unpaid claims and held retention are not security. They are evidence supporting the exit, and funders treat them that way. Where retention is the whole reason for the gap, the shape of the facility changes and that is handled separately in builder retention and private lending.
| Funder | Published term | Published loan to value | Published facility size | Published turnaround |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Funding.com.au | 1 to 36 months | Typically around 65%, and 70% on occasion | Approximately $25,000 to $10 million | Conditional approval within approximately 4 hours, settlement in around 3 days |
| Assetline | Up to 24 months | Up to approximately 80%, measured on peak debt | Not published for this facility | Assessment in approximately 72 hours |
| Fifo Capital | 3 to 36 months | Not published, first or second mortgage taken | Approximately $500,000 to $5 million | Not published, rates quoted on application |
| Maxiron | Flexi typically to 6 months, Flash48 and Flash72 1 to 24 months | Not published, commercial purposes only | Not published | Not published |
Source: funder published product material, read 14 September 2026. Figures are indicative and change without notice. A funder appearing here is not a statement that a given facility is available to any particular borrower, and a blank entry means the funder publishes nothing on that point rather than that it permits anything.
Can a progress claim be the exit on a bridge?
A progress claim can be the exit where it is certified, undisputed and payable on a date the funder can read in a document. Anything short of that is a forecast, and a forecast is not an exit. The funder's question is never whether the work was done, it is whether a third party has already agreed in writing that the money is owed and when it falls due.
In practice that means a certified claim, a certificate or assessment from the principal or superintendent, and a payment schedule or contract clause that fixes the date. A progress claim that has been lodged but not certified will usually still get a facility written, but sized against the security rather than against the claim, which means a smaller advance. A claim in dispute is treated as no exit at all, because the funder cannot control how long a payment dispute runs. The Commonwealth guidance on payments and invoicing sets out the baseline obligations that sit behind payment terms and unpaid amounts.
Where the claim is the whole question and the choice is between instruments rather than lenders, the comparison is drawn out in progress claim funding, a business loan or a caveat.
Why do build timelines outrun bridging terms?
Build timelines outrun bridging terms because a bridge is written against a date and a build is governed by a sequence, and sequences slip. A funder prices a facility on the assumption that a defined event occurs inside a defined window. Weather, trade availability, a variation, a late certification or a principal's internal approval cycle each move that event, and none of them move the expiry date on the loan.
The mismatch is structural rather than careless. Published terms on a short term loan in this lane run from roughly 1 month to 3 years, but the priced expectation is usually far shorter than the maximum, and the facility is sized on the short assumption. Where a builder takes a short facility against a claim that historically takes longer to certify than the term allows, the file is built to fail from day one, and that is the diagnosis this section exists to make.
What to do once the term is genuinely at risk, meaning extension, standstill or refinancing a part built position, belongs to the guide on a development facility expiring before completion. If the answer is to move the facility to a different funder rather than to extend it, the structural options are set out in whether a bridge can sit with a different lender.
When should a builder not use a bridge at all?
A builder should not use a bridge when the gap is structural rather than temporal, which is to say when there is no single event that clears it. Three situations account for most of these, and each has a better instrument sitting next to it.
The first is a margin problem dressed as a timing problem. If the contract no longer covers the cost to complete, a short facility funds the shortfall once and then falls due into the same shortfall, which is worse than the original position. The second is recurring working capital. A builder short every month across every job needs a facility that revolves, not one that terminates on a date. The third is completed but unsold stock, where the right answer is usually a residual stock loan written against the finished assets rather than a bridge written against a claim.
There is also a simple cost test. A privately funded facility carrying an establishment cost, a risk fee and monthly interest is cheap against a stage that would otherwise stall, and expensive against a delay of a few weeks that a supplier would have carried for nothing. The wider property lending picture, including where each of these instruments sits, is mapped in the property lending hub, and the commercial premises version of the same timing problem is handled in buying your next commercial premises before the old ones sell.
A builder's funding gap is a bridge when a named, dated event clears it, and a construction facility when the money has to be built first. The security is registered property the entity or its directors own, almost never the site under contract. The exit is a certified claim, a settlement or an approved term facility, and an uncertified claim sizes the facility down rather than up. Where the gap is a margin shortfall, a recurring working capital need, or unsold completed stock, a bridge is the wrong instrument and a different structure does the job better.
Key takeaway: Name the event that repays the facility and put a date on it before you shop the deal, because that is the single fact the funder decides on.Frequently Asked Questions
A builder can get a bridging loan between build stages where the gap is short, the repayment event is already identifiable, and there is registered property to secure it against. What decides it is not the build, it is the exit: a certified claim awaiting payment, a lot under contract, or a term facility already approved, which is the ground covered in the guide to private bridging loans for business. Without one of those, private funders read the request as working capital and price or decline it on that basis.
A build stage bridge is not the same as a construction loan. A construction facility funds the build itself and releases money in stages against certified progress, while a bridge advances once and is repaid by a single named event. The mechanics of claims, certification and drawdowns belong to the construction facility, and are set out in the guide to progress claims and drawdowns rather than here.
A builder needs registered real property security for a short term bridge, in first or second position, and it does not have to be the site under construction. Private funders commonly take the builder's own home, an investment property, or a completed lot held in the building entity. Held retention and unpaid claims are cashflow rather than security, so they support the exit story and not the loan to value calculation.
A bridging loan can be repaid from a progress claim where the claim is certified, undisputed, and payable on a date the funder can see in writing. An uncertified claim is a forecast rather than an exit, so most funders will size the facility against the security instead and treat the claim as supporting evidence. Where the claim is contested, the exit has to be something the funder can rely on without waiting for the dispute to resolve.
If the next build stage is delayed past the bridge term, the facility falls due while the money meant to repay it has not arrived, and default interest typically starts from the expiry date. The practical options are an extension on the funder's terms, a refinance, or a sale, and the mechanics of each sit in the guide to a development facility expiring before completion. Every one of them is easier and cheaper to arrange before expiry than after it.
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