5 Things to Know in Order to Remortgage

At Your Mortgage Experts, our mortgage advisors will help you understand your options and figure out what is best for you. They will assess your situation and affordability, research the market, and recommend the most suitable available option to you. They will submit the mortgage application, and manage the process to make sure that everything will go smoothly until your new mortgage will be in place.

We have prepared a simple remortgage checklist below to help you prepare.

1. Details of Current Mortgage:

As you plan to remortgage, you would want to have the details of your current mortgage arrangement, which you can found from either the mortgage offer documentation, or by checking with your current mortgage provider. Your broker will require information like how much you currently owe, the remaining term of the mortgage, the monthly payment amount, and the interest rate. If you will exit your current agreement early, you’ll also need to know any applicable early repayment charges in order to compare the total costs of the remortgage vs the benefit of a new mortgage deal.

2. Your Household Income

The better you understand your finances, the more likely you are to get a good and smooth remortgage process. If you are employed, you would want to have an accurate break-down of your total income between gross basic pay, and any overtime, commission, and bonuses. For any elements of variable pay (such as overtime, commission, bonuses) you would want to show that you have been in receipt of those regularly, consistently and ideally with a good historical track record. If you’re self-employed, it is preferable to have at least two years of financial records available, and generally speaking you would want to speak to an experienced mortgage broker to assess your finances.

3. Your Household Level of Spending

As mortgage lenders will assess your “affordability”, they will need to have a good indication of your household expenditures. Your expenditures will include things like your regular household spending, as well as any payments towards pensions, and credit commitments the likes of credit cards, loans, and car finance. It’s important to be accurate when including these numbers so that you can get a true picture of what you can afford with a new mortgage. Also, don’t forget to include any other mortgages that you may have and related property expenditures. Mortgage lenders will typically calculate affordability based on spending from data from the Office for National Statistics. In addition, they will review the expenditures in your bank statements, and will also check the data held by the credit bureau for any credit commitments.

4. Any Anticipated Future Changes

As a mortgage is an important commitment, you would want to ensure that you can continue to make your regular mortgage payments now and also in the future. Importantly, you would want to know that if your level of expenditures will increase, that you can continue to afford the mortgage payment. With the cost-of-living crisis, household expenditures have gone up and mortgage lenders have already become a little more stringent with their “affordability models”. You would also want to consider any additional future expenditures, which may result from things like the birth of a child, home improvement projects and so on. You would also want to make sure that with the higher interest rates that we are all now facing, that you mortgage will continue to be affordable.

Remember that a mortgage is a loan secured against your home. Your home may be repossessed if you do not maintain repayments on your mortgage or any other load secured against it. So it is important to assess your affordability as best as you can to avoid putting your home ownership at risk.

At the same time, if your income is expected to increase, for example due to a job promotion, please mention this to your mortgage adviser as some mortgage lenders can consider your new future income when assessing affordability. Bottom line, it is important to talk about possible future changes in circumstances both on your level of spending and income. A mortgage adviser can help you make sense of all of this and work out a budget for you.

5. The Value and Conditions of Your Property

Mortgage product rates vary depending on the Loan-to-Value (i.e. the ratio between the mortgage amount and the value of the property). Therefore, it is important to get a good indication of the value of your property. Remember that property prices are expected to reduce in the upcoming months, therefore historical valuations may not be reliable any longer. A local estate agent may help you get a current realistic valuation. Also, online models may be able to provide you with an indicative valuation, with a certain degree of confidence.

The value of your property might have also changed as a result of home improvement projects, such as an extension or a refurbishment. Remember that if you have made changes to the physical structure of your property, or built an extension, you may need to produce additional documents such as Building Completion Certificate, and Planning Consent, typically issued by your local Council, in order to be able to remortgage to a new provider.

Remortgages with Your Mortgage Experts

With a great relationship with our lenders, we have access to a large number of deals that might be perfect for you. Testimonials from our happy customers confirm that we go above and beyond to get the best London remortgage deal suited for you and your circumstance. Contact us today or give us a call at 0208 154 1111 for more information – there’s no commitment necessary. Or Get Started Online to check what deals you may qualify for.

Luca Bertolino

Mortgage Expert

Your Mortgage Experts is led by Luca Bertolino with 20 years experience in financial services and in the property market. Through Luca’s wealth of knowledge and expertise, Your Mortgage Experts have become a trusted adviser that clients have come to rely upon for all their mortgage and protection needs.

Call us today at 020 8154 1111