Guide to - Remortgaging your property
If you are thinking of changing your mortgage for a higher amount, a better rate or to fund a project in or out of your house, there is legal work to be done. Some lenders will offer an in-house conveyancing package, but you are generally entitled to select your own solicitor to act for you.
This can be the solicitor who dealt with your house purchase or a new solicitor whom you have got to know from other business or a recommendation from family or friends. The solicitor dealing with the transaction will call up your title deeds from your current lender, and receive the loan paper from your new lender (or perhaps the same lender if you are simply changing mortgage product or getting a further advance on your present loan). The new mortgage papers and instructions (which mirror the offer of loan you receive from your new lender) are sent to your solicitor, who draws up a new security and a discharge of the old one, arranges signings and calls down your new loan funds from the lender, then pays off your old mortgage and pays the remaining funds , less costs, to you or your nominated payee.
In doing his or her job, the solicitor carries out title and property searches to ensure all is well, examines your title deeds if not seen by him or her before, and reports to the lender before ordering the funds. One thing to be careful of is to be sure in whose name the title deeds are. If a married couple for some reason have the deeds in the name of the husband or wife alone, and the new mortgage is in joint names, this will not fit, so either the lender has to agree to change the mortgage, or the clients have to instruct a transfer of title into joint names – which involves unavoidable extra cost and complication.
As with any transaction, we quote fees and outlays in advance, and produce a cash statement to confirm money in and out of our ledger on your behalf. And as for working out what mortgage is best, we are not mortgage brokers ourselves, but work regularly with a small group of Independent Financial Advisers who can deal with enquiries and options on this subject.