Generally you will need a minimum of 5% to 10% of the purchase price.  Buying with one of the government schemes – Help-to-Buy or Mortgage Guarantee Scheme – allows you to buy a home with as a little as a 5% deposit, subject to lending criteria.  In most cases, the bigger the deposit you have the better rate we will be able to secure for you.

Find out more about first-time buyers

Yes, we specialise in helping Foster Carers find the best mortgage, working in partnership with The Fostering Network.  We will assess all of your fostering income to ensure you obtain the most suitable deal and offer a stress-free application process.

Visit our dedicated Foster Carer Mortgage page

We can offer you a range of protection policies to match your specific situation.  Your requirements might include life insurance to ensure your family is left a lump sum should you die, critical illness cover to pay a lump sum or if you are seriously injured, or income protection should you suddenly be unable to work.

Read more on our Insurances

More information on Critical Illness Cover

Yes you can.  We work with a comprehensive range of lenders,  including those who have a better understanding of self-employed income sources.  We can ensure that your mortgage affordability is calculated based on your specific income sources and place your application with the most suitable lender, taking into account the documentary evidence of income they require.

Find out more about a Self-employed Mortgage

Our team of experienced advisers has access to specialist lenders who offer buy-to-let mortgages, so we can source the best deal for you to maximise your profit on your investment.

Read more on Buy-to-Let Mortgages

A repayment mortgage repays some of the interest you owe and some of the capital you’ve borrowed each month and at the end of the mortgage term you will have paid back everything borrowed and you’ll own your home outright.  Based on identical borrowing, interest rate and term, your monthly payments will be higher than an interest-only mortgage.
 An interest only mortgage means you pay only the interest on the loan each month and repay the capital at the end of the mortgage term from a repayment vehicle such as savings, investments or by selling the property.  Lenders can insist that you demonstrate and evidence how you intend to repay the loan.  Your monthly payments will be lower than a repayment mortgage based on identical borrowing, interest rate and term.

Use our calculators to find Repayment Mortgage Deals

Yes, by using one our simple mortgage calculators, it will quickly help identify the best deal for you based on your requirements entered.  You should then speak to one of our expert Advisers who can confirm the information and make a recommendation.  The Adviser can then assist in obtaining a quote, a decision in principle and submit your full mortgage application.

Try one of our online Mortgage Calculators

With Help-to-Buy the government will lend you up to 20% (40% in London) of the full purchase price of a new-build home, by way of an equity loan.  This is interest-free for the first five years. The price you pay for a home depends on where in England you buy it.  Regional price caps are in place for this scheme ranging from £186,100 to £600,000.

Read more advice on Help-to-Buy Mortgages

You can buy a share of your home between 25% and 75% of the home’s value with a mortgage and you pay rent on the remaining share.  You will usually be able to buy further shares when you can afford to, this is known as “staircasing”.  The Help-to-Buy loan equity scheme is also available for Shared Ownership purchases.

Find out more about Shared Ownership Mortgages

Use our online calculator to find Shared Ownership Mortgage Deals

The main things that determine how much you can borrow is income and current credit commitments. Each lender will have their own way of calculating this and so it is important that you share all the facts and figures with your adviser so the best option can be determined.

Arrange a callback with one of our advisers.

Lots of factors will determine the amount you pay each month such as the loan amount, the term of the mortgage, the interest rate and the repayment type.

Use our Mortgage Calculators to find out how much you could pay each month.

A repayment mortgage is guaranteed to pay off your mortgage by the end of the term that is selected, as long as all payments have been made.

An interest only mortgage is where your monthly payments only cover the cost of the interest that is being charged and therefore the original loan amount does not reduce.

In order to obtain an Interest Only mortgage you will need to have a repayment vehicle in place that can cover the loan amount at the end of the term. This repayment vehicle could be the sale of the property, investments, pensions or even savings. A mortgage provider would most likely want to see evidence of this repayment vehicle at the time of application.

This is an initial check that a lender will carry out on you based on some basic, but important, information.

They will take into account many factors such as income, commitments and your credit score to determine whether they are happy to lend you money.

If the decision is ‘yes’ then you can progress to a full application where they will take more in-depth details and request documentary evidence to support the information supplied.

This will depend on the tenure of the property but for example for a freehold property you will be required to have buildings insurance. You would usually include contents insurance with this too.

It is also important to think about what the options might be should you be unable to make the mortgage payments or your situation changes considerably, so we recommend looking at other insurances such as Life Insurance, Critical Illness Cover and Income Protection.

All of these we can discuss with you.

A fixed rate is where the interest that is being applied to your borrowing remains fixed for a defined period of time, the most common periods would be 2 or 5 years.

This means you have the certainty of knowing exactly what you will pay each month for this period of time.

At the end of this period of time you would look to remortgage or product switch before moving onto the lenders Standard Variable Rate.

Both of these are termed as variable which means they may change should the Bank of England change their base rate.

A Tracker rate is usually an incentivised rate for a certain period of time, for example 2 years, and will track a particular base rate.

The SVR (standard variable rate) is determined by the lender and does not include any discounts or incentives, however, there are usually no early repayment charges linked to the SVR so you are free to overpay without charge.

When you are getting close to the end of an incentive period your adviser should get in touch to look at all the remortgage options for you. This might include switching to a product with your existing lender, known as a Product Transfer.

The aim is to move you on a to a better interest rate than the standard variable rate which you would automatically move on to if you didn’t change products.

Your adviser can arrange any of the options for you and can also potentially assist in obtaining more borrowing at this point too.

Click to arrange a callback from one of our advisers.

The freeholder of a property owns it outright, including the land it’s built on, most houses are Freehold.

If you buy a freehold, you’re responsible for maintaining your property and the land.

If you buy a property that is classed as Leasehold then this means you own the property for a certain length of time which is know as the ‘term of the lease’.

This is common where you are buying a flat, therefore not the land and the building but a property in a larger building.

You might not be responsible for all the costs of maintaining the building based on this tenure but you might pay some other costs that contribute to this.

There are various costs associated with buying a property, not just the mortgage payments. Here are some details on the main ones:

• Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT): This is a tax which is paid on property purchases. You may have seen lots in the press about these recently Current percentages payable can be found at https://www.gov.uk/stamp-duty-land-tax and we also have a calculator you can use on this site.
• Solicitor’s / Conveyancer fees: Conveyancing refers to the legal work completed by the solicitor or conveyancer you choose when buying or selling a property. We can quote and arrange this service for you.
• Valuation / Survey fees: A mortgage provider will want to ensure that the property is ‘suitable security’ for them to lend you money against and so in most cases will use an independent surveyor to value the property and this cost is usually also based on purchase price. Many lenders offer free valuations, especially for remortgages.
• Lenders arrangement fees: These can usually be either added to the mortgage or paid up front and can vary significantly in amounts. Remember that is you add the fee to the loan then you will be paying interest on this amount too. Lenders will have products without fees but they might not be good valued compared to one with a fee therefore it is important to discuss this with your Adviser.
• Moving costs – this will vary for everyone but don’t forget to include them when you are budgeting.

In essence yes, but there might well be restrictions which would be product dependent.

In most cases where you have a fixed interest rate there will be early repayment charges applicable if you pay off over a certain amount during this incentive period.

It is always good to talk to your adviser prior to making a significant overpayment to make sure everything is in order.

Yes, but the amount will be product dependent.

Most fixed rate mortgages allow 10% of the outstanding balance to paid off each year during the incentive period, however, if you plan to make bigger payments it might be worth looking at products that have no early repayment restrictions.