Mortgage & Protection Guides

When a fixed rate comes to an end, there are really only two ways to avoid drifting onto your lender's standard variable rate. You can take a new deal with the lender you already have, which is a product transfer, or you can move the mortgage to a different lender, which is a remortgage. Neither is automatically better. The right answer depends on the rates on offer, whether anything about your circumstances has changed, and whether you want to borrow more.

With a residential mortgage, your salary decides how much you can borrow. With a buy-to-let, it is mostly the rent. Lenders take the rent the property should earn, run it through a calculation called a rental stress test, and that produces the maximum loan. Two landlords buying the same house can be offered very different amounts, purely because of how they are taxed or which product they choose.

Setting up a company to buy property is easy to do and surprisingly easy to get wrong. The registration itself takes about an hour online, but the choices you make in that hour, such as the SIC code, who owns the shares and how the deposit gets into the company, decide which lenders will look at you later. Most of the problems we see with SPV mortgages started on the day the company was formed.

Most people who come to us about let to buy start from the same place. They have found somewhere they want to move to, they have equity in their current home, and something makes them reluctant to sell it. Sometimes that is the interest rate they are sitting on. Sometimes the chain has collapsed. Quite often it is simply that the house has been a good investment and letting it out feels smarter than cashing it in. At Drummonds Finance Group we arrange let to buy cases regular

You want to borrow against your home for an extension, a loft conversion, a tax bill, or to buy someone out. Five years ago the answer was simple: remortgage the lot. Now it often is not, because remortgaging means giving up a rate you will never see again. At Drummonds Finance Group, this has become one of the most common conversations we have. If you are sitting on a fix at 2.4% and you need £40,000, moving your whole balance onto today's pricing to get it is an expensive w

When a relationship ends and there is a joint mortgage, one question comes up before almost anything else: can I take your name off it and keep the house? At Drummonds Finance Group we handle this regularly, and the honest answer is that it is usually possible but rarely as simple as it sounds. A mortgage is a contract with a lender, and the lender gets a say. This explains how it actually works, what lenders look at, and what your options are if the numbers do not stack up f

There is a conversation we have most weeks. Someone tells us they earn £58,000. We look at the payslips and their basic salary is £41,000. The rest is bonus, commission, overtime or shift enhancements. Both numbers are true. The problem is that lenders do not treat them as the same thing, and the gap between the two can decide whether a purchase works. At Drummonds Finance Group, we handle variable income cases every week for employed borrowers across the UK. This guide expla

If you bought a new build with a Help to Buy equity loan, there is a date in your paperwork that matters more than you might think. Five years after completion, the interest-free period ends and the government's loan starts costing you money every month. At Drummonds Finance Group we deal with this constantly, because the scheme ran from 2013 until it closed to new applications in March 2023, which means most people still holding an equity loan are now past that five-year mar

A detailed 2026 guide to the biggest housing, transport, rail and regeneration projects across Oxfordshire, including Bicester, Oxford, Didcot, Heyford Park and Cherwell — and what they could mean for buyers, homeowners and landlords.

Chancellor John Healey delivers the Autumn Budget on Wednesday 28 October, his first since taking the job. Property tax speculation has been running since the summer, and most of it has been wrong. At Drummonds Finance Group the question we are being asked most often is whether to hold off on a purchase or a remortgage until the Budget has been and gone. This sets out what is already law, what has been ruled out, what is still guesswork, and what any of it means for your mort

Found a property that needs so much work a normal lender will not mortgage it? Here are the main UK mortgage, bridging and refurbishment finance options to consider.

The Bank of England held the Bank Rate at 3.75% on Thursday 17 September. That is the sixth hold of 2026, and the rate has now sat at 3.75% since December last year. At Drummonds Finance Group, we have spent this week fielding calls from clients whose fixed rates end over the winter, and the question is always the same one: do I move now or wait and see? This is what the decision actually changes, and what it does not. The headline is dull. What sits underneath it is not. The

How does shared ownership staircasing work? See 1%, 5% and 10% rules, example costs, rent savings, valuations, mortgages and Stamp Duty.

Using a gifted mortgage deposit? Learn who can gift, what lenders and solicitors check, documents needed and how to avoid delays.

How Long After a Default or CCJ Can You Get a Mortgage? When people ask us about getting a mortgage with bad credit, the question is almost never really "can I?". It is "how long do I have to wait?". And the honest answer is that there is no single waiting period, because lenders do not treat adverse credit as one thing. A £150 default on a mobile phone contract from four years ago and a £6,000 CCJ registered last month are completely different cases, even though both technic

Life does not always follow the plan you had when you bought your home. A new job in another city, moving in with a partner, working abroad for a couple of years, or a property that will not sell in the current market. Whatever the reason, a lot of homeowners find themselves asking the same question: can I rent my house out while it is still on a residential mortgage? The short answer is not without your lender's permission. The longer answer involves something called consent

The Mortgage Lender (TML) fixed rate ending? Learn product transfer rules, the 19th-of-month deadline, SVR risks and when remortgaging may help.

A practical guide to mortgage protection in the UK, including life insurance, critical illness cover, income protection, employer benefits and how to identify protection gaps.

Applying for a mortgage can feel overwhelming, especially when lenders start asking for documents. Knowing what is required in advance can make the process far smoother and reduce delays or stress. While exact requirements vary between lenders and individual circumstances, most mortgage applications in the UK follow a similar structure. Below is a clear guide to the documents you are likely to need and why lenders ask for them. Proof of income Proof of income is one of the mo