Service station property loans

Ardent Capital Group brings the same method to every client: execution and strategy, clear advice for smart lending, and long-term growth. That means the right lender, structure and timing, straight advice so you borrow with confidence, and today's deal built toward where you want to be tomorrow. We are specialists in helping business owners secure finance to purchase their own property, and we understand the complex structures that often sit around it, including multiple trusts, holding companies and self-managed super funds. Service stations earn from fuel margins and convenience retail, and carry environmental checks and lease structures that give some funders pause, so it goes to lenders who genuinely fund forecourts and read them properly. As the site performs and you weigh adding another down the track, the team stays alongside you. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

No Australian lender publishes an LVR for a service station, so we will not invent one. The lenders who publish 75% to 80% on standard commercial security exclude service stations outright, so a fuel site is assessed case by case by a much shorter list of lenders. Where you can offer residential or other business security, a cross-collateralised structure can fund up to 100% of the price, subject to serviceability. Talk to us.

Yes, and there is no point pretending otherwise. A site that stores fuel underground is not an ordinary shed. It carries a regulatory regime of its own and it earns from fuel volume and shop turnover rather than simply from floor space, so it sits outside the standard commercial bucket that holds warehouses, shops and offices. That is why the published tables exclude it and why the lender list is shorter. It is also why a broker who knows the asset is worth more here than on almost any other property type. The sites get funded. They just get funded by different lenders, on the strength of the file rather than a table.

This is a straightforward question to get on top of when you plan for it early, which is exactly what we do. Underground petroleum storage systems are regulated in their own right, and where the operator of an out of use system cannot be located, the landowner can be treated as the person responsible. So a buyer can inherit the obligation with the land, regardless of who put the tanks there. That is exactly why we establish the tank position before anything else, and why the records that come with the site are worth real money. It is not a reason not to buy. It is a reason to know before you exchange rather than after.

They continue for as long as the tanks are there. In practice that means a fuel system operation plan, loss monitoring so that a leak is detected early, equipment integrity testing, groundwater monitoring where it is required, and record keeping across all of it. Since 2019 the regulator for most sites in New South Wales is the local council rather than the EPA, so the first call is often to the council rather than to a state agency. On a change of responsibility the records must be handed over, which is why an incomplete set at a vendor is something we want to know about early.

Then it is planned rather than discovered. Decommissioning and removing tanks carries its own notification requirements and its own timetable, and it has to be built into the deal and the finance from the start. Building the decommissioning cost and sequencing into the deal from the start keeps the timing on your terms rather than the other way around. Where a site is being bought with a view to changing its use, the tank removal is usually the first item on the programme, not the last, and we structure the facility around it.

Not by itself, but it has to be established rather than assumed. Service stations are one of the largest categories of contaminated sites in Australia, and leaded fuel was only phased out in 2002, so an older site carries a longer history to check. In Australia the process starts with a Preliminary Site Investigation, which reviews the site history and the land around it. Only where that raises a question does it go to a Detailed Site Investigation, which samples soil and groundwater. Some lenders list contaminated land as an unacceptable security outright, so knowing your position early decides which lenders can see the file at all. Your solicitor will advise you on the contract and on how liability is allocated between you and the vendor. We build the finance around what the investigation actually finds.

They are two completely different assets, and the first thing we do is pin down which one you are buying, so it goes to the right lender. A leased freehold investment is a servo let on a long triple net lease to a national operator. You are buying a lease covenant and an income stream, so the tenant, the lease term, the rent reviews and the WALE do the work, and the tenant usually carries the outgoings and the tank obligations under the lease. A site you run yourself is business lending with environmental conditions attached, valued on the fuel volume it moves and the shop turnover as well as the bricks. Different assets, different lenders, different everything. The first question we ask is which one you are buying.

On what it earns as much as on what it is built from. Fuel volume, the margin on it, shop turnover and shop margin all come into it, along with the site itself: the frontage, the access, the traffic count and the ease of getting a truck in and out. In many sites the shop carries the margin while the fuel carries the volume, so the convenience offer is not a sideline in the assessment. A valuer will also want the tank position and the compliance records, because they affect what the site is worth to the next buyer as well as to you.

They are narrower again. A truck stop or roadhouse is fuel plus food, parking or accommodation, so it earns from several streams and it is often in a regional location, and both of those things shorten the lender list further. That is not a reason to avoid them. Truck stops on good highway positions with real driver demand are strong businesses, and the sites are hard to replicate. It does mean the file has to be presented properly, with the income streams separated and the tank and compliance position clear, and it means the lender list needs to be worked rather than assumed.

For a site you will run, two to three years of business financial statements and tax returns, BAS lodgements, and fuel volume and shop turnover split out rather than lumped together. Lenders want to see the volume through the pumps, the shop margin, and that the trade is repeatable rather than seasonal. A fuel supply agreement is worth naming in the submission because it tells a credit team something about the volume and the pricing. Where the site has traded under a previous owner, the vendor's figures are the starting point, and we help you interrogate them before you rely on them.

For a full-doc application, most lenders want two to three years of business financial statements and tax returns, personal tax returns for all guarantors, the contract of sale, the lease if you are buying a leased investment or the premises you occupy, the fuel supply agreement, and every environmental and tank record on the site. That last one is not optional on a fuel site. Alt-doc and low-doc routes exist, supported by an accountant’s declaration, BAS lodgements and business bank statements, at a slightly higher rate. We work through your income situation upfront to identify the best approach.

Yes, it is possible, and we arrange these. It is also one of the more intricate purchases in commercial finance, and the detail is what decides whether it works. The fund borrows under a limited recourse borrowing arrangement, so the service station sits in a separate holding trust and the lender can only come after that one property. From 10 August 2026 a new arrangement can only be used for business real property. A service station trading wholly as a business qualifies, and it does not matter whether you or a tenant runs it. A site with a residence on the same title, which is common on a roadhouse, generally does not. Your operating company leases the site back from the fund, in writing, at market rent supported by an independent appraisal, and the rent has to actually be paid. Cross-collateralisation is not available inside super, so the fund needs its own deposit and the 100% LVR structures described elsewhere on this page do not work here. Lenders cap SMSF lending below a standard purchase, generally between 65% and 80%, and want cash left in the fund after settlement. We know this sounds complicated. It is, and that is exactly why we do it every day. Reach out to our team and we will guide you through the entire process. We structure the finance, tell you which lenders will take a service station as SMSF security and on what terms, and bring in the SMSF specialists and licensed advisers who set the fund side up. You will not be working it out on your own. Get that right and it is a solid, compliant structure.

Often, yes. A decline usually means the file went to a lender who does not write fuel sites at all, which is most of them, rather than that the site is unfundable. The two common causes are a file sent to a panel that excludes service stations by policy, and a tank or contamination question raised at valuation instead of being settled at the start. Both are fixable, and the second is a great deal easier to fix before it happens. The shorter list of lenders who genuinely assess fuel sites read them on the merits of the file. We will give you a straight answer on whether it is fundable elsewhere.

Because on a fuel site the lender list is the whole game. Going direct means one lender’s appetite, and on this asset there is a strong chance that appetite is zero: the lenders who publish the best standard commercial terms name service stations as an exclusion, and no lender publishes an LVR for one. A specialist broker knows who is genuinely writing fuel sites this quarter, how each one reads a leased servo against one you run yourself, and what each wants to see on the tanks. Presenting a fuel site to the wrong credit team is how a fundable purchase gets declined.

Most of the time, no. We are paid a commission by the lender once your loan settles. Where a purchase requires significant preparation, a small mandate fee may apply, and we will always be upfront about this before work begins.

Although we are based in Sydney, we service clients across all major Australian cities, including Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Adelaide, Canberra and Hobart, along with their surrounding regional areas. Wherever your service station is located, we can arrange your finance.

Although our main speciality is property loans for business owners, we also assist with store refrigeration finance and working capital for service stations. On asset finance, that covers forecourt and canopy works, tank and pump upgrades, point of sale systems, refrigeration, coffee and food service equipment, and delivery or service vehicles. On working capital, we arrange business overdrafts, lines of credit and cash-flow funding to carry fuel and shop stock, to fund an upgrade between quarters, and to cover wages.

Yes. That is our core ethos, helping you understand the right strategy, structure and clear advice from the very first conversation. Our main borrower profiles are business owners and commercial property investors seeking finance from $100,000 upwards, and a fuel site is very often a first commercial purchase, so it is well within our wheelhouse. We will walk you through which lenders will actually look at the site, how the tank position is established, and the deposit you will genuinely need, before you commit to anything.