Difference Between a Mortgage and a Remortgage?

A remortgage is basically a mortgage that you use to pay off a mortgage that you already have. The remortgage is a new mortgage on the same property as your current mortgage, the paying off of which leaves you with the new mortgage instead.

Once the change over from a mortgage to a remortgage has taken place, managing a remortgage is essentially the same as managing a mortgage. You still have to pay the debt owed on the property back along with whatever interest you’ve agreed to, and providing you manage to clear the debt, the property will be yours outright at a later date.

Options

The range of remortgage options is much the same as the range of mortgage options that are available. What you’re effectively doing is swapping one mortgage for another on the same property, although there are other ways that you can do this.

You can contact your mortgage lender at any time and ask them what the options for your mortgage are, only one of which is remortgaging. If you want to try and get a better interest rate, reduce you monthly payments or shorten the term of your mortgage, remortgaging is one of the ways of doing this, but not the only one. Your lender will be able to advise you on what other options are available.

Lenders

If you do want to remortgage, whether to get a better mortgage deal, or to perhaps obtain further lending, you should also check out what other options are available on the market.

There are remortgage comparison tools online that will help you to weigh up the relative merits of these different deals. Also, remortgage calculators, freely available to use online, can help you to calculate what the actual impact of remortgaging is likely to be on your finances.

Costs

When you are making comparisons between your current mortgage and a potential remortgage, bear in mind that there are normally costs associated with remortgaging. Your current lender may charge exit fees for ending the mortgage early, and your new remortgage deal may incur arrangement fees, legal and valuation costs. Be sure to include these in your calculations, as if they cancel out the savings that you’ll see by remortgaging, it’s clearly not going to be worthwhile.

In General

The right remortgage deal can have a really positive effect on your finances, both in the short and long term. However, the wrong deal may well put you under increased financial pressure, so make sure you do your sums and if necessary get advice from an independent adviser before making any decisions. Your mortgage is lending secured on your home, so it’s imperative that you don’t put this at risk.