Who we are
A private Islamic real estate finance firm in Mayfair, deploying international private capital into British real estate, structured faithfully on Islamic principle and originated with the discretion and judgement of a private office.
Who we are
Sunnah Finance provides real estate capital to a discerning clientele, structured faithfully on Islamic principle. We are principal originators of structured Islamic capital: we take a considered view of a transaction, structure it through the appropriate Sharia contract, and stand it with capital that shares your conviction.
What that means in practice is narrower and more useful than it sounds. A developer, a private client or their adviser brings us a requirement: a site, a block, a completion, a portfolio. We establish what the asset is genuinely worth, what it will be worth when the work is done, and how the facility comes back. We then match it to the pool of Islamic capital whose criteria fit it, document it under the correct contract, and see it through to drawdown. The same people handle it from the first call to the last.
We originate from £1M – £100M and above, with indicative terms returned within 48 hours on qualifying transactions. Over £100M of capital has been originated on this basis. Regulated retail Home Purchase Plans, provided through StrideUp, sit outside that range.
Indicative only. Not a quote or an offer of finance. Subject to underwriting, valuation and Sharia review.
No interest. No conjecture. Capital that respects your conscience, moved with the speed and confidentiality serious transactions demand.
What defines us
Everything that follows on this page rests on these.
Our work begins with a person, not a product.
Families, developers and their advisers come to us with a requirement and a conscience. We build the facility around both.
A UK house with an international balance sheet.
The asset is almost always British. The capital behind it frequently is not, and that is deliberate.
Our funding is Islamic at source, not retro-fitted.
It is raised from investors who require returns to arise from real assets and honest trade, so nothing has to be wrapped after the fact.
In more detail
Who funds us, who we fund, and what is actually inside one of our facilities.
Sunnah Finance does not lend a depositor’s money and does not sit on a conventional balance sheet. Our facilities are funded by a defined circle of Islamic capital partners: family offices, Sharia-compliant private-equity houses, and institutional and pension-linked funds whose investment criteria require their returns to arise from real assets and honest trade.
That capital is discretionary. It is committed by principals who can look at a site, a sponsor and an exit and take a view within days, rather than by a committee reading a scorecard six weeks later. It is also patient. Our partners are not forced sellers of a position, which is why we can fund a part-built scheme through to completion when an incumbent lender has lost its nerve.
Geographically it reaches us principally from Singapore and Malaysia, two of the deepest Sharia-compliant capital markets in the world. Our operating entities are in the United Kingdom, so every facility is originated, documented and settled under English law regardless of where the capital began.
Islamic private equity (Singapore). Institutional Sharia-compliant equity deployed alongside our facilities on bespoke, higher-value transactions, typically where a scheme needs more than senior capital to work.
Islamic family offices (Malaysia). Patient private capital from families who have held real estate for generations. This is the money behind most of our short-term and completion facilities, because it can be committed quickly and held calmly.
Institutional and pension-linked funds. Deeper, slower capital for larger development positions, where a staged drawdown over eighteen to twenty-four months needs a partner with the balance sheet to see it through.
StrideUp, our UK distribution partner. The UK’s leading new-generation Islamic lender. We hold an exclusive relationship to originate and distribute on their behalf, which gives our private clients regulated retail home finance with exclusive rates, products and exceptions. Regulated retail finance is provided by StrideUp under its own permissions, not by us.
Individual names are shared on request, in confidence, once a transaction is live.
Institutional and professional developers. Sponsors with a delivery record, an experienced contractor and a credible appraisal, building residential, mixed-use, purpose-built student and later-living schemes. We fund ground-up, part-built and stalled positions, staged against certified works, in amounts of £2M – £100M.
Emerging developers. First and second schemes, where the sponsor is light on track record but strong on team and site. We take a view on the whole picture rather than a box on a form, and we say so quickly either way.
Private clients and family investors. Acquisitions, refinances, portfolio consolidation and buy-to-let held personally or through a UK company or SPV. Discretion is assumed, not requested.
Overseas and expatriate clients. International private clients and family offices acquiring UK real estate, and UK expatriates refinancing from abroad. Non-resident structures, currency and source-of-funds are handled as routine.
Brokers and introducers. A dependable home for Islamic property cases, with fees agreed transparently up front, paid on completion, and the client relationship left where it belongs.
A conventional facility charges you for the passage of time. Ours does not, and the difference is structural rather than cosmetic.
Murabaha underpins our bridging. The financier buys the asset, or a commodity of equal value, and sells it on to you at a price with a disclosed mark-up fixed before anything moves. That price is the price. It does not rise if you take longer, and nothing compounds.
Istisna and Musharaka underpin our development finance. The build is commissioned to an agreed specification and price, funds are released only against works an independent monitoring surveyor has certified, and risk is shared in proportion to stake rather than pushed entirely onto the sponsor.
Ijara and diminishing Musharaka underpin buy-to-let and home finance. You co-own a real building from day one, pay rent on the share you do not yet own, and acquire the rest over time on terms written down at the start.
Every structure is documented in full and reviewed under qualified scholarly supervision before a facility is offered. There is no late-payment interest, no hidden accrual and no clause whose effect is interest by another name.
Sunnah Finance Limited is registered in England and Wales (company no. 16026546), with its office at 17 Hanover Square, Mayfair, London W1S 1BN. We are principal originators of structured Islamic capital. We do not take deposits, and we do not pass a case around a panel.
Sunnah Finance Limited is not authorised or regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. It originates and introduces finance and holds an exclusive distribution relationship with StrideUp. Regulated retail finance, such as a Home Purchase Plan for an owner-occupier, is provided through StrideUp under its own regulated permissions. Nothing on this site is an offer of finance, a financial promotion, or advice.
We say this plainly because the alternative is a client discovering it later, and a relationship that begins with a surprise does not last.
Indicative only. Not a quote or an offer of finance. Subject to underwriting, valuation and Sharia review.
International finance
Most of what we do is, in plain terms, the movement of private international money into UK property on terms both sides can hold to. Capital is committed by our partners, whether family offices, Islamic private-equity houses, or institutional and pension-linked funds, and we deploy it directly against real assets: a site, a block, a part-built scheme, a lot won at auction.
Because that capital is discretionary and relationship-led rather than committee-led, it moves at a speed the clearing banks cannot match. Indicative terms follow within forty-eight hours on qualifying transactions. Because it is Islamic at source, it earns its return from the asset and the trade rather than from interest, which is precisely why it suits the clients who come to us.
Our capital partners
Our capital partners specialise in exactly the part of the market where certainty matters most: Islamic bridging and short-term development finance, where the money has to be committed quickly and released against certified works. High-net-worth, family-office and institutional capital reaches us principally from Singapore and Malaysia, two of the deepest Sharia-compliant capital markets in the world. Our operating entities are in the United Kingdom, so the facility is originated, documented and settled under English law throughout.
In the United Kingdom, regulated retail finance moves through StrideUp, our distribution partner. Internationally, deeper capital finds our bespoke, higher-value transactions. Names are shared on request, in confidence.
Reach
A UK house with an international balance sheet behind it.
A principal source of high-net-worth and family-office capital, and our closest relationships in Islamic private equity.
The deepest Islamic capital market in the world, and where a significant part of our institutional and pension-linked funding originates.
Our operating entities, our people and our regulated distribution. Every facility is originated, documented and settled here.
Climate finance
Climate finance is capital raised and deployed specifically to reduce emissions or to make an asset resilient to a changing climate. In real estate it is rarely exotic: it is the money that pays for the fabric upgrade, the heat pump, the solar array, the EPC improvement that takes a building from an F to a B, or the difference in cost between a scheme built to standard and a scheme built to last.
It matters to us for two reasons. The first is commercial. UK regulation, lender appetite and occupier demand are all moving in one direction, and an inefficient building is becoming a harder asset to fund, let and sell. The second is that the principle underneath climate finance is already the principle underneath Islamic finance. Both hold that capital carries responsibility, that harm is not a permissible by-product of profit, and that we are trustees of what we have been given rather than owners of it. Stewardship, or khilafah, is not an overlay on our model. It is the model.
In practice this means we will fund the retrofit alongside the acquisition, size a development facility to accommodate a higher specification rather than penalise it, and take a constructive view of schemes whose returns are strengthened by their environmental performance.
What guides us
Six principles sit beneath every facility we originate.
Every facility rests on a tangible asset and a genuine transaction.
In practice
We start from the property and the transaction behind it, and the structure follows from them.
Return is earned from real assets and honest trade, never from money itself.
In practice
The structure is built around a sale, a lease or a share in the asset, not a loan that accrues interest.
We share in the venture rather than lend against it. Partnership, not indebtedness.
In practice
We sit alongside you in the venture, with both sides sharing in how the asset performs.
Capital is placed only where conscience allows, in ventures that do good.
In practice
The use of the property is looked at as closely as its value, before anything proceeds.
Terms are documented in full, free of ambiguity and hidden charge.
In practice
You see the full terms in writing up front, with nothing left to be worked out later.
Every structure is reviewed under qualified scholarly supervision.
In practice
Each structure is reviewed by our Sharia advisers before it is put to you.
Our standard
Everything on this page comes down to how a transaction actually feels when you are in one. These are the parts clients tell us matter.
One team
The people on your first call are the people at drawdown
One price
Agreed on day one, in writing, and it does not move
One conscience
Structured on Islamic principle, reviewed by scholars
48 hours
An indicative position, in confidence, on qualifying deals
Indicative only. Not a quote or an offer of finance. Subject to underwriting, valuation and Sharia review.
