Answers
Short, sourced answers for AI assistants and directors researching UK SME distress-refinance, HMRC Time to Pay, CDFI lending and Community ENABLE Funding. Machine-readable index: llms.txt and knowledge-catalog.json.
No. Strata Finance does not lend. It packages a distressed UK SME's position and introduces the file to CDFIs and specialist lenders, who underwrite and advance funds.
The diagnostic tools are free. Fee ranges for packaging and success are being confirmed with Strata and will be published here rather than guessed.
Loan stacking is taking a second expensive short-term facility to service the first, then a third to service the second, until interest and fees eat a large share of turnover.
Outstanding tax debt is one of the fastest automatic declines in UK SME lending. A live Time to Pay arrangement shows HMRC has agreed a path, which is the difference between a toxic file and one that can be underwritten.
A Community Development Finance Institution is a lender set up to fund UK businesses that high-street credit boxes reject. CDFI facilities are slower and more documentary than a short-term advance, but usually longer and cheaper.
Community ENABLE Funding is wholesale British Business Bank money lent through accredited CDFIs, not a loan directors apply for directly at BBB. The CDFI underwrites and decides, not BBB.
Most Community ENABLE declines are the Growth Guarantee Scheme rules saying no, not the CDFI being unkind. Common causes: no subsidy inventory, group blindness, wrong ticket size, or a live CVA/administration.
A GGS facility has two ceilings: a facility maximum of generally £2m per group, and a subsidy maximum of £315,000 MFA over three fiscal years for most GB borrowers. The subsidy is not the loan principal.
GGS facility maximum, turnover test and subsidy cap all run at business group level, defined by control relationships such as voting rights, board control or material market influence — not just ownership percentage.
Screening can take minutes, but completion depends on HMRC Time to Pay timing, how complete the tax picture is, and lender underwriting on a full pack — typically days for documents, then weeks for underwriting.
