Specialist business mortgage broker for trading companies across Oxon

The county's business base has two clear anchors. Oxford's industries include motor manufacturing, education, publishing, science and information technology: Mini cars are built at Cowley, Oxford University Press is based in the city, and the Oxford Science Park and the university's Begbroke Science Park host technology firms. In the north, Banbury's main industries are motorsport, car components, electrical goods, plastics, food processing and printing, with Prodrive and the Jacobs Douwe Egberts coffee plant among its employers.

Around those sit the companies that most often buy: science and software firms wanting a lab-enabled or office building, automotive and motorsport suppliers buying engineering units, publishers and education businesses buying offices, and food producers, farm businesses and rural trades across the Cotswold and Vale villages. Our page on owner-occupier mortgages explains how lenders approach a company buying its own building.

Oxfordshire's geography splits into bands. The Northamptonshire Uplands around Banbury give way to the Cotswolds, then to the clay vales of the upper Thames and the Midvale Ridge, which together hold the main population centres including Oxford, Witney, Bicester and Abingdon. South of Wantage the chalk Berkshire Downs, known for the Uffington White Horse, form part of the North Wessex Downs National Landscape, and three areas of the county are Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

For premises buyers that means two kinds of deal. In the towns along the clay vales, industrial and office property has plenty of comparable evidence. In protected countryside, buildings are often converted barns or farm units with tighter planning, so lenders look harder at the permitted use, access and how easily another business could take the building on.

Lenders active in owner-occupier lending usually advance 70 to 75% of the lower of price and valuation, up to 80% for strong cases. Indicative pricing is 6.0 to 7.5% a year over 5 to 25 years, with arrangement fees usually 1 to 2%, subject to status, accounts and valuation.

Oxfordshire is in England, so Stamp Duty Land Tax applies. HMRC charges 0% on non-residential property up to £150,000, 2% from £150,001 to £250,000 and 5% above £250,000 (rates as at October 2026; check the current rates before you buy).

Illustrative example. An automotive components firm buys an engineering unit for £750,000. A 75% loan is £562,500, so the deposit is £187,500. SDLT on £750,000 is £27,000, bringing the cash needed to about £214,500 before legal and valuation fees. Our guide to stamp duty on commercial property has the full bands.

Oxfordshire is a non-metropolitan county with five districts, so planning sits with the district council covering the building: Oxford City Council for the city, Cherwell for Banbury and Bicester, the Vale of White Horse for much of the land south of the Thames that was historically Berkshire, and the councils for South Oxfordshire and West Oxfordshire. The lender's solicitor will confirm the building's lawful use with that council before completion.

The lender takes a first legal charge registered at HM Land Registry and normally a debenture or directors' guarantees. Commercial lending to a limited company is unregulated and falls outside the FCA's regulated mortgage perimeter. Where a deal would be regulated, for example lending to a sole trader or individual, or a property where the borrower or a close family member will live in part of it, we refer it to an appropriately authorised firm. Other counties nearby are on our South East business mortgages page.