Asset class
Private debt in United Kingdom
Private debt held through a UK structure survives a default only as well as its custody chain and its charge registration survive scrutiny. Whether it is a loan note, a direct lending facility, or a corporate bond, what decides a claim is not the contract's promise but who is recorded as the current holder, and against what security. That record sits with the custodian, the registrar of debenture holders, or nowhere at all.
Register and custody layer
UK private debt rarely runs through a public register comparable to a listed security, a distinction set out in the overview of private debt as an asset class. A charge granted to secure a loan note is registrable at Companies House, but the note itself, and the identity of its current holder, is usually recorded only in a private register kept by the issuer, an agent, or a custodian bank. Where the instrument sits in a nominee account, the investor's name may not appear on any register at all. Before a claim is framed, the working question is which layer holds the operative record: the company's own register, an agent's book-entry system, or a custodian's internal ledger. Each layer answers to a different party and different instructions.
The document rarely handed over
What an investor usually holds is a subscription confirmation or an account statement, not the instrument itself and not an extract from whichever register applies. The underlying loan note, the debenture, or the security document creating a charge sits with the issuer, the security trustee, or the custodian, and is handed over only on request, if at all. A claim against a non-performing note depends on proving who the current legal holder is and what security backs the debt. A missing document is rarely a formality gap; it is often the reason a claim stalls before it starts. The mechanics are covered separately in what custody of private debt means for a claim and in what the contract usually leaves out.
What belongs in a pre-deal report
A pre-deal or pre-claim report checks whether the instrument matches what the subscription paperwork describes. That includes the registration status of any charge, the identity of the custodian or registrar actually holding the record, and the governing law and dispute clause found in the note itself rather than in marketing material. Where a document needs to be used outside the country of issue, the report also checks legalisation. The United Kingdom accepts apostille certification under the 1961 Convention, subject to a reservation and territorial extensions recorded against it [N403]. Where the live question is cross-border, the starting points are the UK jurisdiction page and, for enforcement, enforcement into the UK. A paid initial assessment reviews the actual instrument, the custody chain, and the registration status against the file, and sets out what a 6D report needs to confirm rather than assume.