75% Mortgages

What is a Seventy Five Percent Mortgage? A 75% mortgage is a home loan where the amount borrowed is 75% of the value of the home being purchased. The remaining 25% is provided by the person purchasing the home, in the form of a deposit. 75% mortgages are sometimes referred to as having “75 per […]

Mortgage Discounts for Green Homes

Yorkshire Building Society has announced the launch of a new Home Energy Efficiency mortgage product to assist its existing customers in going green. The product will help homeowners who want implement environmentally-friendly measures in their homes, with a 5.65 per cent rate on a Home Energy Efficiency Additional Loan for five years. This represents a […]

Getting a Mortgage for a Short Lease Property in the UK

If you buy a flat it will either be Freehold or Leasehold. If it is leasehold then the freeholder will own the ground on which the block of flats stands. You just buy the right to live in the building for a set number of years – the number that the lease has to run […]

Building Society Demutualisation

The development of the financial services industry from the 1970s onwards created the conditions for the huge changes that have overtaken building societies. In order to diversify to keep up with banks and other financial institutions in the commercial world the old societies needed to expand. To do this they had to raise capital. Margaret […]

Flats Above Shops – Mortgages for Difficult Properties in the UK

Flats above shops and other commercial premises are also more difficult to get mortgages on. As well as looking at construction and marketability, lenders will look at whether any of the commercial activities in the block are likely to cause a nuisance by virtue of noise, smell or unsociable hours. They will also look at […]

Mortgages for Ex-Council / Former Local Authority Flats and Houses

Ex-council property tends to offer more space for your money than privately built property. Generally they were built to a very high standard. They were well designed by enthusiastic architects with good use of space. The quality of materials used was also high. This matters because common issues with flats such as problems with noisy […]

Risky Properties and Mortgages in the UK

If you are looking for a mortgage bear in mind that as well as classing some borrowers as high risk, lenders also class some types of property as more risky than others. These include high rise flats, flats with short leases, flats above shops, and ex-council or local authority property. Although it might be more […]

Building Society Mortgages

A Very Short History of British Building Societies Building societies originated in the self help movement of 18th century Britain. Working men began to pool their funds in organisations from which they could borrow to build houses. In the early days, once every member had a house the society would be closed – they were […]

The Dangers of a 25-year Fixed Rate Mortgage

The Government wants to encourage more borrowers to sign up to mortgages with interest rates that are fixed for between ten and 25 years. But fixes as long as this are extremely risky.  If you’re lucky, there can be advantages to this kind of deal, but if you’re unlucky, they can work out desperately expensive. The benefits of a long […]

The Dangers of an ISA Mortgage

An Isa mortgage is a combination of an interest-only loan and an Isa, or individual savings account, which is the repayment vehicle for the capital portion of your debt (this is the amount you originally borrowed). You could choose a cash or an equity Isa. (For more on this, see The two types of Isa mortgage.)  There are several reasons why […]