Refinance your panel and paint shop property loan

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. On a panel shop refinance the booth is the file. It is built into the building, so its condition and its approvals sit inside the valuation rather than beside it, and a valuer attending your shop is inspecting it as part of the property. We get that documented before attendance, place the file, and stay with it past drawdown. Every figure is subject to serviceability, lender appetite and approval.

We refinance commercial facilities from $50K up to $30M, from a single-booth shop with a prep bay to a multi-booth smash repair facility. The new limit is set by the current valuation and by servicing, not by what you originally borrowed.

Because your bank can only tell you what your bank will do, and in automotive the spread is unusually wide: the majors do not publish an owner-occupier commercial LVR at all, several non-banks publish 80% on industrial security, and lenders differ markedly in whether they read a fitted booth as value in the building or as a complication. We do the legwork: we run the comparison across more than 40 lenders, present to one at a time so your credit file stays clean, and model the break costs, valuation and legals against what moving actually gains you.

Up to 80% of the current value. A panel shop is standard industrial security, grouped with warehouses, shops and offices rather than with specialised assets. The figure follows a fresh valuation, not the price you originally paid.

It does, and that is unusual for a workshop. Fixtures are captured by a mortgage over real property and chattels are not, and chattels are not normally included in a mortgage valuation. A booth, its plenum, its ductwork and its extraction are installed into the fabric of the building rather than standing on the slab, so they form part of the property being valued. It is the one place where the largest cheque in the shop sits on the security side of the line, so brief the valuer before attendance rather than hoping it is noticed.

As part of the building, which is the point most owners have not thought through. Because the booth is a fixture, how much working life is left in it sits inside the property number rather than beside it, so a booth cycled hard for a decade reads differently to a recent installation. That is a reason to have the condition and the servicing history in the file rather than a reason to avoid a refinance, and where a replacement is coming, the refinance is usually how it gets funded.

The approval it trades under, the servicing history and the filter and maintenance record. Solvents and extraction are regulated, and the approval and the extraction are the two things an incoming lender and a valuer both want settled. At purchase all of that has to be checked on somebody else's installation. As an owner you hold it with a history attached, and putting it forward with the application is what turns the booth from an open question into an asset in the file.

Yes, where the current valuation supports it. Cash out on a commercial refinance is assessed on the purpose of the funds, so the lender wants to know what it is for. A replacement booth, a second booth, a prep bay, a mixing room, a compressed air upgrade, the deposit on a second site or a working capital buffer are all ordinary purposes. We evidence the purpose properly at the outset, which is what keeps it straightforward.

Differently to most plant, and this is the useful part. In nearly every other trade a plant replacement goes on equipment finance and stays off the mortgage. A booth installed into the fabric of a building you own becomes part of that building, so funding it as building work through the property facility, or drawing against progress invoices as the installation proceeds, is often the better structure. We look at both and tell you which one your file suits.

No. A panel shop is standard commercial security, in the same bucket as a warehouse, a shop or an office, and it is valued on comparable sales and the rent the premises could command. Plenty of owners are quietly geared down because a credit team read the trade and assumed otherwise. The building is an ordinary industrial shed with a fitted booth in it, and the booth is value rather than a complication.

Often not. A decline on a top up is one lender applying one policy on one day, and in automotive the policies differ sharply. The shed is standard industrial security, so it is written by a wide group of banks and non-banks with genuinely different appetites on the sector, on LVR and on how they read a fitted booth. We look at why the answer was no, then place the file where that reason is not the deciding one.

It does, so name it rather than leave it inside a turnover figure. Insurer, dealership and fleet arrangements are contracted repair work, which a credit team can rely on in a way it cannot rely on passing trade. As an owner you hold several years of it, and setting it out alongside the rest of the book is the kind of evidence a purchase file simply cannot produce.

Four to six weeks from application to settlement for a straightforward file. Where an SMSF or a booth installation is running alongside it, allow longer. We give you a realistic timeline at the start so you can plan the expiry date around it.

The existing loan statements, two to three years of financial statements and tax returns, personal tax returns and notices of assessment for the guarantors, a statement of assets and liabilities, and the schedules for the equipment facilities. For this niche the ones that matter most are the booth approval, its servicing and maintenance history, and any insurer, dealership or fleet agreements, because those describe both the building and the work coming through it.

The costs are a valuation, legal and settlement fees, any lender establishment fee, discharge costs from your current lender, and break costs where you are leaving a fixed rate. Break costs are an economic cost, so they are calculated on the day and vary with how much fixed term is left. We put the real numbers against the benefit before you commit to anything.

Yes, it is possible, and we arrange these. An industrial shed sits comfortably inside a fund, and this is also one of the more intricate refinances in commercial finance, where the detail decides whether it works. From 10 August 2026 a new arrangement can only be used for business real property. A panel shop trading wholly as a business qualifies, and it does not matter whether you or a tenant runs it, while a site with a residence on the same title generally does not. It has to stay the same single property. It is limited to the balance outstanding plus accrued interest, so there is no top up, no redraw and no cash out inside the fund. There is a particular point here: because a booth is a fixture it forms part of the property the fund holds, and borrowed money cannot fund an improvement inside an arrangement, so installing a new booth is not something the loan can pay for. The holding trust is reassigned to the incoming lender rather than dissolved, which carries a legal cost worth weighing against the gain. Your operating company leases the shop back 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. SMSF lending on standard commercial security generally runs between 65% and 80%, the major banks have exited SMSF lending, and lenders want a liquidity buffer left in the fund after settlement. We know this sounds complicated, and we can assist to make things clearer. 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 panel shop 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.

Most of the time, no. Where a refinance requires significant preparation due to its complexity, a small mandate fee may apply, and we will always be upfront about this before any 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 shop is located, we can arrange your finance.

Yes, and it is more common than you would think, because the loan is set up at settlement and then simply runs while the booth works and the trade changes around it. 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 established business owners and commercial property investors with facilities from $50,000 upwards. We will start by telling you what the premises are likely to value at now with the booth counted, what sits on your current facility, what moving costs, and whether it is worth making. If it is not, we will say so and you can stay where you are.