Remortgage guide: how to remortgage and save money

When people talk about wanting to remortgage, they're usually reacting to one of a handful of situations. Working out which one applies to you is the first step in deciding how to remortgage in a way that suits your circumstances.

Two of these reasons deserve extra care. If you're planning to release equity to consolidate other debts, you're moving that borrowing onto a loan secured against your home. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage or any other debt secured on it. A secured loans arrangement is sometimes a more suitable alternative if you'd rather not disturb your existing mortgage rate, and if you're already finding debt hard to manage, MoneyHelper offers free, independent guidance on 0800 138 7777.

If you're over 55 and considering releasing money from your home without taking on a new monthly repayment, it's worth reading our equity release guide before deciding, and checking any provider's standing with the Equity Release Council. And if the property you're remortgaging is let out rather than lived in, the rules are different - our buy-to-let remortgage guide covers the criteria landlords face.

Start looking three to six months before your current deal ends. This gives enough time to complete a full application while still letting you lock in a new rate offer before you default onto your lender's standard variable rate.

Most lenders let you reserve a new rate three to six months ahead of when you need it, and many will let you switch to a better deal if rates move in your favour before completion. Leave it too late, even by a few weeks, and you risk a spell on the standard variable rate while your new application is processed, or in rarer cases becoming what's known as a 'mortgage prisoner' if your circumstances have changed and you no longer meet current lending criteria.

How much you could save by remortgaging depends on the gap between your current rate and the rates available to you now, your outstanding balance, and the fees involved in switching. Because rates move constantly, we don't publish specific figures here - an advisor can run the exact numbers for your situation - but the mechanics are worth understanding.

Homeowners who let their fixed deal lapse are moved onto their lender's standard variable rate, which is typically set well above the rates on offer to new customers. On a mortgage balance in the tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds, even a modest reduction in rate can add up to a meaningful saving over a two or five year term.

Before you get excited about a headline saving, weigh it against the cost of switching. An arrangement fee, valuation fee, and legal costs all reduce what you actually save in year one, particularly if you're leaving your current deal early and facing an early repayment charge. We cover typical fee ranges later in this guide.

Loan-to-value, or LTV, is the size of your mortgage compared with the value of your property, expressed as a percentage. A £240,000 mortgage on a £350,000 home works out at roughly 68.6% LTV. Lenders group deals into LTV bands, and which band you fall into has a big influence on the pricing tier you're offered.

House price growth and paying down your balance both move you down through these bands over time. For example, if you bought a £300,000 home with a 10% deposit in 2020, you'd have started on a £270,000 mortgage at 90% LTV. If that property is now worth £350,000 and your balance has fallen to £240,000, your LTV has dropped to roughly 68.6% - a meaningfully better pricing tier than you started in.

If you're remortgaging to borrow more, whether for home improvements, a further advance, or to release equity, you're moving in the opposite direction: increasing your balance pushes your LTV back up and can move you into a less competitive band. It also increases the amount secured against your home. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage or any other debt secured on it.

A product transfer means staying with your current lender and moving onto a new rate they offer existing customers, usually with little or no fresh affordability checking. A full remortgage means switching to a new lender, or renegotiating fully with your current one, which typically involves a new affordability assessment and access to the wider market.

It's always worth comparing before you accept a product transfer. Lenders rarely put their most competitive rate in front of existing customers by default, so a quick comparison against the wider market could reveal a better-priced option elsewhere, even after accounting for the extra steps a full remortgage involves.

Once you know how to remortgage step by step, the process feels far less daunting. Most remortgages complete in around four to eight weeks from application to completion: allow roughly one to two weeks for the application itself, two to four weeks for valuation and underwriting, and a further two to four weeks for legal work and completion, though product transfers can complete in a matter of days.

Remortgaging isn't without cost, so it's worth understanding what you might pay before you commit. Costs vary by lender and deal, but the following are the main fees to budget for.

Adding your arrangement fee to your mortgage spreads the cost and keeps your upfront outlay down, but you'll pay interest on that fee for the life of the deal, so it usually costs more in total than paying it upfront. Ask your advisor to show you both options side by side before you decide.

Two-year fixed

Gives you payment certainty for two years and lets you re-fix sooner if rates fall further. Early repayment charges usually apply if you leave before the term ends.

Five-year fixed

Longer payment certainty, which suits homeowners who'd rather not think about remortgaging again soon. The trade-off is that early repayment charges apply for longer, and you could miss out if rates fall significantly during that time.

Tracker

Moves in line with the Bank of England base rate plus a set margin, so your payments can rise or fall. Many tracker deals carry a shorter or no early repayment charge, giving you more flexibility to switch again later.

Offset

Links your savings to your mortgage balance, so you only pay interest on the difference. This tends to suit higher-rate taxpayers or homeowners with significant savings sitting in an account earning little interest.

The Bank of England base rate has eased back from its recent peak, and further movement is possible during 2026, though the pace and direction of any future changes can't be predicted with certainty. This is one reason some homeowners are giving trackers a closer look than they might have a few years ago, but a tracker also means your payments could rise as well as fall, so it isn't right for everyone.

Remortgaging with bad credit is possible, though your options narrow rather than close completely. Specialist lenders consider applicants with county court judgments, defaults, missed payments, or historic IVAs, and several factors affect what's available to you.

• How long ago the adverse event occurred - older issues typically have less impact
• Whether it's been satisfied (paid off) or remains unsatisfied
• Your current loan-to-value - a lower LTV usually means more lenders are willing to consider you
• The size of the adverse event - a small, satisfied county court judgment is treated very differently from a large, unsatisfied one

For more detail on what's available, see our adverse credit mortgage options guide.

If you're self-employed, remortgaging usually means providing more documentation than an employed applicant would, since lenders need to build a clear picture of your income over time rather than relying on a single payslip.

Income is typically assessed as salary plus dividends if you trade through a limited company, or net profit if you're a sole trader. If your income dipped during 2020 or 2021, that period is now four to five years old and starting to fall out of most lenders' three-year assessment windows, which may put you in a stronger position than the last time you remortgaged.

For more on how lenders treat self-employed income, see our self-employed mortgage guide.

An advisor who compares a wide range of lenders can access deals you won't find by going direct to a single bank or building society, including products only available through intermediaries. They'll assess your affordability across multiple lenders at once, rather than you applying to each one individually, and handle much of the paperwork and lender chasing on your behalf.

Any advisor you speak to should be Financial Conduct Authority-regulated, which brings a duty of care to the advice you're given. You can check any firm's status on the Financial Conduct Authority register before you proceed.

It's worth being realistic about the limits too: even an advisor working with a wide range of lenders can't access every product on the market, and how quickly things move depends on how fast you can provide documents as much as anything else.