Mortgage Features

The mortgage scheme you choose may benefit from one of the following features. You should discuss your requirements with your advisor to determine which is the most suitable for you.

Fully Flexible Mortgages
These schemes allow you to overpay, underpay or even take a payment holiday. All unpaid interest will be added to the outstanding mortgage. Any overpayment will reduce your outstanding mortgage.  It is common for variable, discount and trackers to be offered with a flexible facility.

Limited Flexibility
You could make penalty free overpayments, the amount varies from one lender to another. A common amount is up to £500 per month or 10% of the outstanding mortgage balance per annum.

Cash back
Some lenders offer cash payment on completion of the loan, either based on a percentage of the total loan or a flat fee. Lenders that offer any type of fixed rate, discount or cash back facilities will want to try and ensure that borrowers are not continually changing lenders in order to take advantage of the latest new offer. They will usually make an early repayment charge if you want to redeem your mortgage early.

An early repayment charge may be levied if you die within the redemption period so you should consider building this into the level of life cover you have. You should also make sure that you can afford the variable rate that will be charged at the end of the discounted or fixed rate period.

Unsecured Borrowing 
Some lenders will offer mortgages up to 95% of the purchase price of the property, but will arrange a personal loan on top of this at the same interest rate and term as the mortgage. This facility allows borrowing up to 125%of the purchase price or to a set maximum sum. There will be arrangement fees to pay and an early repayment charge.

Portability
This means that the balance outstanding can be transferred to another property with the same terms and without penalty. Should you need to increase the mortgage on moving, then the additional borrowing may be subject to differing terms as available at such time.

Porting the scheme is subject to the new property being considered as acceptable security to the lender for mortgage purposes and your situation still being satisfactory to the lender in terms of credit assessment and affordability. You will avoid paying an early repayment charge if you are still in a benefit period.