Remortgaging

From time to time, you might need money in hurry. This could be due to urgent home repairs, a car breakdown, a much-needed holiday, finding a deposit on a new rental flat, or coping with a relationship breakdown.

London house prices fell 0.7% over the past 12 months, while the rest of the country saw house prices increase by around 5%.

The UK economy will improve in 2018 after a very weak start to the year, according to Bank of England governor Mark Carney. If the economy improves as he expects, the Bank of England base rate will likely rise from 0.5% to 0.75%.

Tough new data protection rules – called GDPR – will come into force on May 25 across Europe, including here in the UK. These new regulations will dramatically change how companies collect, store and reuse your personal data.

The Bank of England has decided to keep the base rate at 0.5%. The decision was made by the BoE’s Monetary Policy Committee following a very weak period for the British economy: GDP growth was just 0.1% for the first quarter of 2018, far short of the 0.4% target set in February.

Five-year fixed rate mortgages offer a balance between two-year fixed rate mortgages, which might not offer enough security for some people, and 10-year fixed rate mortgages, which are costly and can lock you in for a long time.

Interest-only mortgages have much smaller monthly repayments – but the lender will only give you an interest-only mortgage if you have another way of repaying the balance at the end of the term.

If you want to buy a property and then rent it out to tenants, rather than live in it, you will need a buy to let mortgage.