Refinancing for home improvements - how?

[Twohoots]

Hi we are looking to do quite a bit of conversion work in our house and will need to finance the work. Prob c £30k in all. We don't have a mortgage on the property so not sure we could just take out a mortgage for that work (suppose we could remortgage just for that amount?). Not sure I'd want to do it over 20/25 years though so could be remortgage but say over 7-10 years? Would that be the best way to get the cash? Could also look at loans but they tend to have higher repayment rates....

Anyone any ideas - I think if we had a mortgage already then it would be worth 'topping' up but as we don't it might not turn out cost effective to do that as we'd need solicitors/basic survey etc done wouldn't we?

Help!!!!

In terms of monthly repayments, doing it as a remaortgage would probably be quite cheap, but don't know if the total you pay back would be a lot more when it is over a long period of time... If the house as it stands is worth a lot more than £30k the mortgage company may not require a valuation survey - I would phone around a few to get some figures.

KTeepee - thanks. Yes, with a mortgage you will pay more (the longer the term the more interest) but that is why I'd like to take it over shorter period IYSWIM. I still think the solicitors fees/poss valuation (yes property worth great deal more than the 30k) would make it a no go on costs - not forgetting often mortgage co's charge a mortgage set up fee! (am talking myself out of it already!).

Maybe the loan would be a better option....

Anyone actually done this for larger home improvements?

Yes we got one with our virgin one account so the interest was reduced daily.
You should get a very good rate as your credit risk is virtually 0

You don't have to take a mortgage out over 25 years. Every time our current mortgage deal expires we remortgage with new lenders for the current period of the loan - currently at 16 years. Even when we moved we took out the extended mortgage for 21 years. I would think you should be able to do this for your loan seen as how it is home improvements. Definitely worth looking into.

Thanks. Angela - you would think your credit rating would be good if you don't have a lot of 'debt' but sometimes you the more debt you have the better credit rating you have! Lol.

Need to look into the mortgage thing in more detail I think. Just wanted people's thoughts really

We got an Equity Release Loan - ie. mortgage - from our bank in addition to the existing mortgage. The interest rate is much better than that on an unsecured loan. To keep the cost of the payments low, we have it spread over the life of the mortgage and have it on a fixed rate for a couple of years since we won't be able to pay off much with ds around. When the fixed rate expires, it becomes a tracker and you can usually pay off as much as you like and so pay it all off early. Our bank didn't charge us an arrangement fee (I am pretty sure); not even sure you would need a mortgage valuation since almost any hovel around would be worth well over £30k nowadays!!