Mortgages, explained properly

First-time buyers: getting mortgage-ready

Buying your first home is exciting and baffling in roughly equal measure. Before a lender will offer you a mortgage, they want to be confident you can afford it, so they look closely at your income, your regular outgoings, your deposit and your credit history. The good news is that all four of those are things you can prepare, and the earlier you start, the stronger your position when the right house appears.

Here is what I typically ask first-time buyers to look at before we apply:

• Check your credit reports with the main agencies and correct anything that is wrong
• Get on the electoral roll at your current address
• Avoid taking on new credit or missing any payments in the run-up to applying
• Build a clear picture of your spending, because lenders will look at your bank statements
• Gather your documents early: payslips, proof of deposit, ID and address history

Once you are ready, I can arrange an agreement in principle, which gives you a realistic budget and shows estate agents you are a serious buyer. I also help with the wrinkles that catch people out, like gifted deposits from family, new jobs, self-employed income and government schemes that may be available to you. Every buyer's situation is different, and my job is to match yours to lenders who will actually say yes.

Moving home: porting your mortgage or starting fresh

When you move house, you generally have two routes. You can port your existing mortgage, which means taking your current product with you to the new property, or you can take out a new deal entirely. People are often surprised that porting exists at all, and equally surprised that it is not automatic. Porting is essentially a fresh application, so the lender will reassess your income, your circumstances and the new property before agreeing.

Whether porting makes sense usually comes down to your current product. If you are inside a tied-in period with early repayment charges, keeping your existing deal can avoid those charges. If you need to borrow more for the new place, the extra amount is normally arranged as a separate product with the same lender, which can leave you with two parts to your mortgage ending at different times. That is manageable, but it needs thinking through properly.

Sometimes the sums favour paying a charge and moving to a new deal, and sometimes they clearly do not. I run those numbers for you, look at what your current lender and the wider market can offer, and help you time everything around your sale and purchase so the mortgage is never the thing holding up the chain.

Remortgaging: why the end date of your deal matters

Most mortgage deals run for a fixed period, and when that period ends you usually roll onto your lender's standard variable rate, which is typically higher than the deal you were on. Doing nothing at that point is a decision, and it is often an expensive one. Yet plenty of people let it happen simply because nobody reminded them.

Timing is the key. I like to start reviewing a client's options around six months before their current deal ends. Many lenders will let you secure a new deal well in advance, and in many cases if things change before completion you can review it again. Starting early means you are choosing your next mortgage calmly, rather than grabbing whatever is available in a panic during the last week.

A remortgage review is also a natural moment to look at the bigger picture. You might want to shorten your term, borrow for home improvements, or restructure things around a change in income. Sometimes the right answer is a product transfer with your existing lender, sometimes it is a full remortgage elsewhere, and I will always tell you straight which one I think fits. If you tell me when your deal ends, I will diarise it and contact you at the right time, so it becomes one less thing to remember.

Buy-to-let and growing a portfolio

A good chunk of my work is with landlords, from first-time investors buying a single flat through to experienced landlords scaling a portfolio. Buy-to-let lending works differently from residential lending. Lenders focus heavily on the expected rental income and apply their own stress tests to it, alongside your personal circumstances, and criteria vary widely between lenders. A case one lender declines, another will happily take.

Portfolio landlords face an extra layer, because once you hold several mortgaged properties, lenders assess the whole portfolio rather than just the new purchase. How your existing borrowing is structured can directly affect what you can do next. I help landlords plan ahead: reviewing the portfolio as a whole, releasing equity from existing properties to fund the next purchase where appropriate, and sequencing remortgages so the numbers stack up. Many landlords also ask about buying through a limited company. There are lending implications either way, and while I do not give tax advice, I am happy to work alongside your accountant so the mortgage structure and the tax position pull in the same direction.

Some buy-to-let and commercial mortgages are not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Protection: the part everyone skips (and should not)

Nobody takes out a mortgage planning to fall seriously ill, lose their income or die young. But a mortgage is a long-term debt that relies entirely on your ability to keep earning, and I would not be doing my job if I arranged the borrowing and ignored what happens if life goes wrong. So alongside every mortgage, I talk about protection. Not a hard sell, just an honest conversation.

The main tools are life cover, which can clear the mortgage if you die, critical illness cover, which can pay out on diagnosis of specified serious conditions, and income protection, which can replace part of your income if you cannot work through illness or injury. Which of these you need, in what amounts and for how long, depends on your family, your work, any cover you already have through your employer, and your budget. Plenty of people are paying for old policies that no longer fit, or assuming a work benefit covers more than it does. Reviewing it all at mortgage time takes very little effort and can matter more than anything else on this page.

How working with me actually works

I try to keep the process simple and human. Here is what it looks like from first chat to getting your keys:

• A free initial consultation, in person in Walshaw or by Teams or phone, where we talk through what you want to do
• A proper fact find, so I understand your income, outgoings, plans and any quirks in your situation
• Research across a wide range of lenders to find a mortgage that genuinely suits your circumstances
• An agreement in principle when you need one, so you can offer with confidence
• I package and submit the full application, deal with the lender's questions, and chase it through valuation and offer
• I keep you, your solicitor and your estate agent updated until completion, then diarise your deal's end date so we review it at the right time

I may charge a fee for mortgage advice depending on your circumstances, normally £595, and I will discuss and confirm this with you at the earliest opportunity, so there are never any surprises. After completion you are not just filed away. I stay in touch, and when your circumstances or your deal change, we pick the conversation back up.