Remortgage Advice: Stay With Your Lender or Switch?

When your mortgage deal is coming to an end, you've got two main routes: a product transfer with your existing lender, or a full remortgage to a new one.

How Does Remortgaging Work?

Remortgaging means replacing your current mortgage with a new deal, either a new product from your existing lender or a completely new mortgage from a different one, to repay your existing loan. You don't move home and you don't need a new deposit; the process simply replaces one mortgage with another against the property you already own.

In practice, the process generally runs through these stages:

1. Check your current deal: your balance, your deal end date, and whether an early repayment charge (ERC) still applies.
2. Decide whether to stay with your lender (a product transfer) or look at the wider market (a full remortgage).
3. Get a property valuation, either your lender's own valuation or, for a product transfer, sometimes none at all.
4. Apply for the new deal, providing proof of income, ID and recent bank statements.
5. The lender carries out affordability and credit checks, and underwrites the application.
6. For a switch to a new lender, a solicitor or licensed conveyancer handles the legal work to transfer the charge on your property.
7. Your new mortgage completes, your old one is repaid, and your new rate and terms take effect.

A product transfer usually moves through steps 1, 2, 4 and 7 only, which is why it's typically quicker. A full remortgage involves every step, which is why it takes longer but opens up the whole market rather than just your current lender's range.

Your Two Main Options When a Mortgage Deal Ends

If you do nothing when your deal ends, you'll usually move onto your lender's standard variable rate (SVR), which is typically higher than any deal you could arrange in advance.

Stay: Product Transfer

Moving to another product with your existing lender. This can involve less paperwork, and may avoid both legal work and a new valuation. The trade-off is that you're limited to that one lender's range, so the easiest option isn't automatically the cheapest. See our guide on how product transfers work for the full detail.

Switch: Remortgage

Replacing your mortgage with a deal from a different lender. This involves a fresh application, affordability and credit checks, a valuation, and legal work, but it gives you access to a much wider range of products. We work with a panel of over 90 UK lenders through Primis Mortgage Network, so switching usually means a genuinely broader comparison than checking a handful of deals yourself.

What to Compare Before You Stay or Switch

Whichever route you're leaning towards, compare these before deciding:

• Your deal end date, and the date any early repayment charge stops applying.
• Your current balance and rate, taken from your latest mortgage statement.
• Your loan-to-value (LTV): your mortgage balance divided by your property's value. The lender's own valuation sets the final band, so treat your own estimate as a guide only.
• The ERC amount, and when it steps down or ends entirely.
• Product, valuation and legal costs, including any cashback or fee-assisted legal work on offer.
• The total cost over your intended deal period, not just the headline rate, since a cheaper rate with higher fees can cost more overall.

What Else Counts as a Remortgage?

What Is Not a Standard Remortgage?

A few situations work differently from a standard remortgage: a further advance (extra borrowing from your existing lender without switching products), porting your mortgage when you move home, and unencumbered mortgages, where you already own the property outright. Each can have different lender criteria from a standard remortgage.

Common Reasons to Review Your Mortgage

Most people remortgage to avoid moving onto their lender's SVR, to change their term or features, to borrow more, or because their LTV has improved through repayment or a rise in property value. If you're releasing equity, bear in mind this usually means paying interest on a larger balance for longer, so it's worth weighing the total cost over time, not just the cash you'd free up now.

Documents You May Need

Exact requirements vary by lender, but preparing early helps avoid delays:

• Proof of identity and address.
• Payslips and your P60 if you're employed, or accounts and tax documents if you're self-employed, since lenders assess this income differently.
• Recent bank statements.
• Your latest mortgage statement, showing your balance, rate, deal end date and ERC.
• Details of any other debts, committed spending and regular outgoings.

What Does It Cost to Remortgage?

Here's what each cost typically looks like, and who charges it:

These are typical market ranges rather than quotes, since the actual figures depend on the specific lender and deal.

Our initial consultation is free, and our broker fee is disclosed at research stage and only payable at application; see our fees page for the full detail. Lenders usually pay a procuration fee on completion, which isn't added to your loan.

A Worked Example

To illustrate how the numbers can work, take a hypothetical example: a £180,000 mortgage balance, currently on a lender's standard variable rate, paying around £1,120 a month on a 25-year term. If a new deal brought the rate down and reduced the payment to around £895 a month, that's a saving of roughly £225 a month, or about £2,700 a year, before fees are taken into account. If switching costs £500 in product, valuation and legal fees combined, the saving would cover that cost within about two months.

These figures are for illustration only and don't reflect any specific lender's current rates. Your actual saving depends on the rates and fees available to you at the time, which is exactly why it's worth comparing properly rather than estimating.

When Should You Start?

Check your deal end date and ask your current lender about product transfer options; most will let you lock in a rate 3 to 6 months in advance. There's no universal deadline, since reservation windows and processing times vary by lender. Starting before your deal ends gives you time to compare properly rather than rushing into your lender's SVR by default. See our guide on what can affect the timeline for how long each route typically takes, and our piece on early remortgaging if you're considering leaving before your current deal ends. If an ERC applies, weigh it against the benefit of leaving early before deciding.

Related guidance:

• remortgaging for home improvements
• debt consolidation mortgages
• remortgaging with bad credit
• when remortgaging may or may not be suitable

You can also check your credit file for free through our own free credit check, and see our guide on the credit score you need to buy a house for how scores affect remortgage applications too.

Whether staying with your lender or switching makes more sense depends on your actual numbers, not just the headline rate. Speak to one of our advisers, or use our mortgage calculators to see what you could save. Call us on 0191 580 9890 or message us on WhatsApp to get started.

The above blog has information contained within which was correct at the time of publication but is subject to change.

This information is a guide, not a personal recommendation. Mortgage availability depends on the lender’s affordability, credit, property and eligibility checks. An adviser will assess your needs and circumstances before recommending a mortgage.