Switch your deal without the usual waiting.

Sometimes not, and we would rather tell you than sell you something you do not need. If you are staying with your existing lender and simply moving to a new rate, a product transfer, there is usually no legal work at all and no conveyancer involved. If you are switching to a different lender, you do need one: the new lender takes a charge over your property and the old one has to be repaid and removed from the title, and that is legal work somebody has to do. The same applies if you are raising capital or changing who owns the property. Our guide to what a solicitor does on a remortgage sets out the work in full. Tell us which one you are doing and we will say so before quoting you.

It is a real offer, and it can be the cheaper route if you are happy with the trade-off. It usually means the solicitor is chosen and paid for by the lender, so their main relationship is with the lender, not you. If you would rather have a firm working specifically for you, with visibility into progress the whole way through, that is what we prepare for.

Typically four to eight weeks from application to completion when you are switching to a new lender. A product transfer, where you stay with your existing lender on a new rate, is faster at two to four weeks because there is no new legal work. Our guide to how long a remortgage takes breaks the timeline down stage by stage.

Checks your identity and source of funds, checks the title and confirms your existing lender’s charge is registered correctly, requests the redemption statement, acts for the new lender in satisfying its conditions, draws down the funds on completion to repay the old mortgage, and registers the new charge at HM Land Registry.

Usually not the full set. Most remortgages need bankruptcy and Land Registry searches rather than local authority, water and drainage and environmental searches, although individual lenders can require more. Any that are needed appear as itemised disbursements in your quote.

A remortgage is not normally a taxable event, because nobody’s ownership is changing. It becomes one where the remortgage is combined with a change of ownership, in which case Stamp Duty is calculated on the consideration, including any mortgage debt being taken on. That is a transfer of equity, and it is a different service.

Your conveyancer is acting for your lender as well as for you, so the firm has to be acceptable to that lender. We take your lender into account when we match you with a panel firm, which is one of the things we settle before anyone is instructed.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority or the Council for Licensed Conveyancers, depending on the firm. The Home Panel is an introducer and not a law firm, and we tell you which panel firm has been assigned before you sign a client care letter.