Posts tagged with Uk Mortgages

UK Mortgages – Need To Know Information

  • Posted on March 7, 2011 at 11:26 am

Whatever stage of the mortgage game youre at, unless you happen to be a qualified financial advisor, solicitor and broker all rolled into one, youll need professional help to find and arrange your loan. This guide presents some basic information on mortgages, but youll need to take specialist advice for your individual circumstances.

Having a general awareness of the processes involved and an idea of whats available to you should help you to make the right decision when you choose your mortgage.

You should be aware, too, of the difference between information and advice. Anyone can give information, and a survey of the web will offer literally thousands of pages about mortgages. Be aware of the legal aspects of mortgages and finances any agreements should be in writing, and you should check all documents carefully before signing. Verbal agreements and information should always be backed up by written copies. Below are some useful starting points for you to explore. Good luck!

Information

The web offers any amount of information on mortgages check that the pages are recent as rules and offers change constantly. Good sources of official information are:

The Financial Services Authority includes a guide to money, mortgages and debt, plus details of regulatory bodies and ombudsmen www.fsa.gov.uk

Direct Gov general information on finances and benefits
www.direct.gov.uk

Inland Revenue check the tax rules that apply to you
www.hmrc.gov.uk

Advice

Anyone offering you advice should be a qualified professional. They should be registered with an appropriate independent regulatory body, and you can ask to see copies of their qualifications. Theres a lot of free advice out there, that should help you without obligation, and its worth taking advantage of.

Independent Financial Advisors

Find an advisor at www.impartial.co.uk and a mortgage specialist at www.unbiased.co.uk

Solicitors

Often family or friends will recommend a solicitor, otherwise look for one that specialises in conveyancing and house buying. Check www.lawsociety.org for professionals in England and Wales, and www.lawscot.org.uk for Scotland.

If you have a query or complaint

The FSA are now the body that regulates financial professionals and lenders the Financial Ombudsman can investigate complaints or disputes and usually resolve them. Contact the professional or lender first they should have a complaints procedure. If you are still not satisfied, you can ask the ombudsman to consider your case: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk
.
(The websites of the respective law societies of England & Wales and Scotland are the place to find out how to make a complaint about a solicitor or firm, see above.)

Continue reading UK Mortgages – Need To Know Information

UK Mortgages – Need To Know Information

  • Posted on February 28, 2011 at 11:26 am

Whatever stage of the mortgage game youre at, unless you happen to be a qualified financial advisor, solicitor and broker all rolled into one, youll need professional help to find and arrange your loan. This guide presents some basic information on mortgages, but youll need to take specialist advice for your individual circumstances.

Having a general awareness of the processes involved and an idea of whats available to you should help you to make the right decision when you choose your mortgage.

You should be aware, too, of the difference between information and advice. Anyone can give information, and a survey of the web will offer literally thousands of pages about mortgages. Be aware of the legal aspects of mortgages and finances any agreements should be in writing, and you should check all documents carefully before signing. Verbal agreements and information should always be backed up by written copies. Below are some useful starting points for you to explore. Good luck!

Information

The web offers any amount of information on mortgages check that the pages are recent as rules and offers change constantly. Good sources of official information are:

The Financial Services Authority includes a guide to money, mortgages and debt, plus details of regulatory bodies and ombudsmen www.fsa.gov.uk

Direct Gov general information on finances and benefits
www.direct.gov.uk

Inland Revenue check the tax rules that apply to you
www.hmrc.gov.uk

Advice

Anyone offering you advice should be a qualified professional. They should be registered with an appropriate independent regulatory body, and you can ask to see copies of their qualifications. Theres a lot of free advice out there, that should help you without obligation, and its worth taking advantage of.

Independent Financial Advisors

Find an advisor at www.impartial.co.uk and a mortgage specialist at www.unbiased.co.uk

Solicitors

Often family or friends will recommend a solicitor, otherwise look for one that specialises in conveyancing and house buying. Check www.lawsociety.org for professionals in England and Wales, and www.lawscot.org.uk for Scotland.

If you have a query or complaint

The FSA are now the body that regulates financial professionals and lenders the Financial Ombudsman can investigate complaints or disputes and usually resolve them. Contact the professional or lender first they should have a complaints procedure. If you are still not satisfied, you can ask the ombudsman to consider your case: www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk
.
(The websites of the respective law societies of England & Wales and Scotland are the place to find out how to make a complaint about a solicitor or firm, see above.)

Continue reading UK Mortgages – Need To Know Information

UK mortgage and remortgage deals

  • Posted on February 21, 2011 at 11:26 am

Mortgage is a way of securing a debt by using your own property as a guarantee to the lender. If For some reason you cannot pay your debt in time you may lose the property. The term mortgage itself refers to the debt and also to the legal device used when securing the property.

In the countries where properties are highly demanded and the prices are quite elevated, there are strong loan and mortgage markets. The UK mortgage market is famous for this reason, it is one of the best in the world, and the competition is very high. The main difference between the UK mortgage market and the ones in other countries is that in the UK the state is not interfering with it and all the loans are funded by banks or credit unions. Also one can find a lot of types of loans in the UK mortgage market.

The UK mortgages are of different interest rates. These rates can be:
-fixed rates – they remain constant for all the period of the loan, usually up to five years because loans with fixed rates that last more than five years are not that popular.
-variable rates – the interest rate of the UK mortgage varies in time, depending on the agreement between the lender and the client
-discount rates – variable rates that benefit of a discount for a period
-capped rates – a mixture between variable rates and fixed rates – the interest rate may vary but cannot raise over a certain fixed limit
Furthermore, these UK mortgage rates may also be combined, depending on what the lender and borrower agree on.

Lenders in the UK are usually also asking for a valuation fee, required to pay an observer that must visit the property and evaluate it in order to make sure that it can cover the UK mortgage amount.

Sometimes after taking a remortgage loan you may wish to switch the mortgage to another lender that asks for lower interest rates, so that you can save some money. This is called remortgaging. The UK remortgage market is also very innovative and competitive, almost half of the mortgage applications are in fact for remortgages.

An advice on UK remortgage is to only remortgage your loan if its interest rate drops under 2% under your current interest rate. But the interest rate is not the only thing that should be taken into account when thinking about a UK remortgage. Also consider the amount of time that you plan to live in your home – it has to be enough to cover the costs of the mortgage.

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Making UK Mortgages More Accessible

  • Posted on December 20, 2010 at 11:26 am

Previously, in the UK, if you wanted to apply for a mortgage to buy a new home, the amount that would be lent to you would be automatically tied to how much money you earned. With runaway UK housing prices over the last decade, and with incomes remaining fairly stable, this method of calculating how much you could borrow on a mortgage has become out dated. Today, many new home buyers need to look for more creative ways to borrow money if they want to buy a new home in Britain.

The Affordable Mortgage

Probably the most common of the new forms of mortgage is the affordable mortgage. Unlike mortgage that fixed to your earnings, affordable mortgages are calculated based on how much you can afford to repay each month once you have taken into consideration all of your other expenses. So, for example, if you have recently bought a new car on hire purchase and will be making hire purchase payments for the next three years, these hire purchase payments will be deducted from your salary and what remains will determine whether or not you can afford to repay the mortgage loan. UK affordable mortgage loans have allowed new home buyers to borrow as much as 50 percent of their monthly disposable income in mortgage repayments, which usually gives new home buyers a much better chance of buying a new home.

The Flexible Repayment Mortgage

Growing in popularity is the flexible repayment mortgage. As mentioned, traditional mortgages take into account what you current earnings are, how much you borrow, the interest rate, and then calculates, roughly, a monthly repayment that will be fixed (variable on interest) for the remaining 20 to 30 years of the mortgage term. Real life, however, is not like that. It is highly unlikely that youll be earning the same in 10 years time as you earn today. A flexible repayment mortgage takes this into consideration. It allows you increase your mortgage repayments over time. As such, within parameters, you are able to borrow more on your UK mortgage than you earn today on the expectation youll be earning more in the future.

The Current Account Mortgage

Strictly speaking, the current account mortgage is not a mortgage at all its an overdraft. As such, it is not restricted by the same lending ratio limits that traditionally apply when applying for a UK mortgage. Nonetheless, so long as you are financially disciplined enough not to be overly concerned with having to live with a large overdraft on a daily basis, this type of new UK home mortgage can mean the difference between being able to buy a house now and having to wait until you have enough of a deposit or a high enough salary to qualify for a traditional UK mortgage.

The world of UK consumer finance is forever evolving. To try and respond to recent demographic changes in the UK, and to ever rising costs of living in the UK, UK credit lenders are having to be more and more ingenious when it comes to obtaining new business. As such, if you find yourself in the position where you simply cannot afford to buy a new home on your current salary, dont give up, look around and see if you can find a UK home lender wholl agree to lend you the money to buy your new dream home on more flexible terms and conditions than was previously the case.

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General Information Regarding Self Certification Mortgages And Remortgages In The

  • Posted on September 27, 2010 at 11:26 am

General Information Regarding Self Certification Mortgages And Remortgages In The UK

Self certification mortgages and self certification remortgages are useful financing options for those individuals looking to buy a new home or obtain a new mortgage in the UK. Those individuals who will find a mortgage of this type most useful are those who are gainfully employed yet may have a difficult time showing where the money comes from and how much money they receive on an annual basis. Examples of individuals who may experience this problem include those who are self-employed, contract workers or freelance workers. Obtaining a self certification mortgage or self certification remortgage is a way for these individuals to obtain financing on their home and not have to go through the hassle of persuading hesitant lenders to give them a loan.

Defining Self Certification Mortgages and Remortgages

A self certification mortgage UK is one which is given to an individual that is not able to prove that they are steadily employed. Although some individuals have a 9 to 5 job, 5 days per week with the same company, there are a large amount of people who work for various companies and perform various tasks which produce different amounts of revenue. For these individuals, showing a set income with one particular company is quite difficult and can be met with some resistance at regular mortgage companies who offer straightforward mortgages. A self certification mortgage or self certification remortgage gives the self-employed individuals peace of mind by helping them to obtain a mortgage or remortgage without all of the hassle attached.

Ways to Find Self Certification Mortgage Lenders

When looking to find a self certification mortgage or a self certification remortgage, an individual will need to obtain a lender who deals with mortgages of this type. There are a few ways in which to obtain a self certification mortgage lender. One way in which to peruse ones self certification options is via the Internet. One can search online to see if any self certification mortgage lenders are based in their area of the UK.

Another way to locate a self certification mortgage lender for a self certification mortgage or remortgage is by way of recommendations. One may have friends or family members in the UK who have obtained a mortgage of this type in the past. By obtaining recommendations, one will not only be able to find a lender but may also learn about good or bad attributes of the lender as well.

Conclusion

Self certification mortgages and self certification remortgages are extremely useful lending options for those self-employed individuals or independent contract workers. This provides a way for the individual to obtain home financing and not have to go through all of the problems they would experience with a regular mortgage lender regarding employment.

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Flexible Mortgage UK Mortgages to Specially Suit the Self-employed

  • Posted on September 13, 2010 at 11:26 am

Flexible Mortgage UK Mortgages to Specially Suit the Self-employed

While a person drawing a fixed salary every month finds it easy to repay loan in fixed monthly instalments, those with a fluctuating income will find it otherwise. In order to tap the potential of the latter group, which principally consists of self employed people and people whose income is largely contributed by commissions, flexible mortgages have cropped up.

A fluctuating income makes the case of these people inappropriate for regular mortgages because of two reasons. Firstly, lenders would not prefer a borrower with fluctuating income. Secondly, the borrower with such an income structure would himself find it difficult to make timely payments.

Flexible repayments, payment as and when you like, and the option to repay the whole of the loan at the time you want, are some of the qualities that flexible mortgages in the UK are characterised with.

Before you perceive this as the ultimate freedom, let us remind you that not all good things come for free. This aptly holds in case of flexible mortgages. The rate of interest charged on flexible mortgages is higher than the interest charged on the regular mortgages.

In spite of a higher rate of interest, the popularity of flexible mortgages in the UK sees no decline. Until the time an alternative to flexible mortgage comes, self-employed people will continue using it. The advantages of flexible mortgages have overshadowed its drawbacks.

Flexibility of repayments forms one of the most important advantages of flexible mortgages. As against the traditional mortgages where borrowers are required to pay a fixed instalment every month, flexible mortgages are easy on repayment rules. Consequently, in a month when the resources are not enough or when the borrower is incapable to make repayments at the normal rate because of loss, lesser repayments will be required. Similarly, when the borrower is in the capacity to pay more than what is required, he can make an overpayment. Paying less also means paying nothing. This is actually true though hard to believe. Payment holidays form one of the prime attractions of flexible mortgages. During a payment holiday the borrowers gets exemption from making payments altogether. The exemptions will depend on the borrowers regularity in the previous months and if sufficient balance of the loan has been overpaid.

Next in the list of advantages, is the facility to draw as many times from the amount paid. Thus,

Since there is a constant change in the balance that is remaining to be paid, charging interest annually or monthly would be costlier for the borrower. The third advantage of flexible mortgage deals with an ingenious way to lessen the interest burden. Interest in flexible mortgages is calculated daily. The daily calculation of interest ensures that periods in which the balance unpaid is less because of overpayment does not lose on the interest.

The list of advantages does not end here. Premature settlement of accounts is a facility that is singly available in flexible mortgages. Unless otherwise stated, mortgagees will charge a premature payment penalty. Flexible mortgages, on the other hand, allow borrowers to repay the mortgage before it is due without any penalties. A borrower who wants to escape the high interest rate will find this clause in their favour. A loan taken to meet an occasional deficit in finance will be paid as soon as the borrower receives the necessary resources.

Depending on the credit status a borrower enjoys, he will get flexible mortgages accordingly. The application procedure of the flexible mortgage is very similar to the regular loans and mortgages. Online applications and online processing helps in accelerating the pace of approval of flexible mortgages.

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