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Our current fixed rate expires in May. Then we're onto 4%. We only had two mortgages to choose from when we bought the house (first timers) as my wife is Croatian and only had a visa for two years at the time.
Now she's part of the EU and has permanent residency were hoping to get a better deal.
When do we need to start the remortgaging process? I.e. How long does it take?
Mine took 5 weeks, with no issues, but no rushing on our part either.
Two months.
Start with your current provider, and see what they can offer.
Ours took from Sept to the middle of Jan, self employed though.
Ours took 2 visits to the bank, about an hour each time. Probably 6 weeks total.
Well worth doing your own research to see what deals are out there. We had our house revalued to move us into a better LTV.
Ours took about 4 weeks and no hassle at all. Moved from Skipton to Lloyds and took 2 phone calls and a bit of faffing faxing some documents over that went missing the first time. Would have been even quicker if it were not for that.
Note the mortgage rules have changed significantly recently and bearing in mind that a remortgage is still just mortgage application in the eyes of the lenders even though it is on an existing property.
The BoE has order that banks fully assess affordability and move away from the old 3.5 x joint income less monthly credit agreements.
They now factor in [i]everything[/I]; magazine subs, whether you smoke, number of kids and whether you expect to have more, whether you are constantly dipping in to your overdraft, weekly entertainment spend, how much you spend on booze, sky / virgin / broadband / mobile bills to name but a few.
The banks are being ultra cautious at the moment whilst they find their way as they do not want a kicking.
Means the whole process is somewhat onerous so may take a little longer than before.
Start your research now, with a view to applying in March. Can take up to 8 weeks depending on the bank. And as said above, they'll even take your STW subs off the affordability. IF you tell them about it
sounds like it was back in the day.. in 81 when i bought my first flat you had to be with the building society three years before you could borrow they went through a full list of your outgoings and i even had to take my bank book in with a letter from the manager .. this for 15 grand..did only take home 49 quid a week thou.
Thanks everyone. I'll start doing the research now.
It took me about an hour at the bank but that was with the same provider, HSBC.
I got e-mails about two months before from Barclays (Woolwich).
Looked around and saw that the deals they were offering were about as good as everywhere else, so applied online got a form in the post that we signed and sent back.
And that's it. Fingers crossed that there's no cock-ups!
just did ours -took about 10 weeks, but was a bit more complicated than the usual.
I'd allow 8 weeks.
I did mine last year.
Took 3 months start to finish as I'm self employed and changed lender, so needed loads more paperwork etc.
I went through an Agent, who picked the best deal for me, and I must say, it was pretty good.
He charged £295, and said I'd save that in the first years interest alone, never mind the 'no-fees' deal he picked.Most lenders want a transaction fee when you chaneg, or at least legal fees.
Yes, you can do it yourself, but this guy came round, listened to what I wanted, connected to the net, then got 100 or so products that were available to me, and he reckoned 25 of those would be suitable, and he'd narrow it down to the best value. His selling point was that he had some software that tracked all current mortgages, and could (nearly) always get the best deal available.