Current mortgage deal coming to an end, please advise

[Canwejustrelaxnow]

Hi. Our current deal is coming to an end and previously we've just done a product change. This time we'd like to go for a remortgage. I think this involves a house evaluation and going through all our finances again. Is this right? We may like to release some equity for an extension. How does this work? Do we need to decide now? Do we need a financial adviser?

I think you need a mortgage adviser. They usually take care of everything and you just need to be home for the house valuation(if the lenders insist) and sign the forms. That's how it worked for us. I am sure someone more experienced will come along soon with suggestions. We paid £800 for the adviser.

Plenty of mortgage brokers who don't charge a fee and are independent. They earn their money from a procuration fee paid by the lender.

Remortgaging is a straight forward transaction. It would be worth getting your paperwork in order:

Last 3 months payslips
Last 3 months bank statements
Latest P60
Proof of address
Proof of ID

For self employed:
Latest 2 year trading accounts
Last 2 years SA302's/Tax calculations
Last 2 years tax year overviews

Would also be worth contacting your existing lender and find out the exact balance outstanding.

Please don't pay anything like £800 to see an adviser- I work for a whole of market firm and we don't charge a fee- there are lots of us!

Get recommendations from family or friends of a local one that will see you face to face

I have only paid for a mortgage broker for B2L. for my resi I do it myself. I remember when we bought this place 7 years ago. my friend paid a broker to end up with the same mortgage I did. only with the added bonus of paying for an adviser.

I would start by trying to negotiate a deal with your existing lender, and then shop around and see what other deals there are. We have just remortgaged with nationwide and they offered us an exceptionally low rate as we have been with them many years now and have never missed payments etc. We did look at other offers but there’s was the best for us so we decided to go with them. We had to provide 6 months worth of bank statements and various other paperwork bits but not as much as if we had gone with a completely new lender. A lot depends on how much extra you want to borrow and the loan to value ratio, if you have a lot of equity in the property you will be able to get much better deals.

Thanks all. We'd like the house revaluing as it's gone up a lot. So if we want to take say 10K out, then our mortgage would just be 10K more? So we'd need a builder's quote for the work first before we approach mortgage companies?

You might find that the mortgage valuation is less than the market value, this is because they will be basing it more on structural value rather than aesthetic / market amounts. Our mortgage valuation was about £20k less than we would expect to get if we put the house up for sale. We didn’t challenge this (although you could if you wanted to) because we were offered the lowest rate anyway - the valuation can alter the interest rate you are offered as it changes the loan to equity ratio.

I would get builders quotes first so you know how much you want to borrow and then go from there. I would also consider other borrowing options - for £10k you might even be better with a shorter term personal loan through somewhere like a supermarket bank, they usually have very good deals and offers.

Thank you. That makes sense.