Compare Mortgages

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
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(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.)

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.