Remortgaging your home

What does remortgaging mean?

When you remortgage, you repay your current mortgage and take out a new one — either with your existing lender or with another one. The goal is usually a lower rate, better conditions or more certainty about your monthly costs.

Sometimes remortgaging is not necessary at all: a rate adjustment or rate averaging with your current lender can already be enough.

Who is this relevant for?

• Your fixed-rate period ends within the next few years.
• You pay a higher rate than you would get today.
• Your home has increased in value, placing you in a more favourable risk class.
• Your situation has changed: different income, moving in together, separating or retiring.
• You want to make your home more sustainable, increase your mortgage or repay part of it.

What should you look out for?

• Early repayment penalty: breaking a fixed-rate period can come with a compensation fee.
• Additional costs: valuation, notary, advice and possibly NHG.
• A lower loan-to-value ratio, through value growth or repayment, often lowers your rate.
• Tax consequences: the remaining term of your interest deduction and how an older interest-only or savings mortgage is treated.
• Conditions such as penalty-free repayment, portability and rate averaging.

What are your options?

• Rate averaging: your current and current-market rate are averaged, with a surcharge.
• A rate adjustment with the same lender based on a new property value.
• Fully remortgaging to another lender with better conditions.
• Splitting your mortgage into parts with different fixed-rate periods.
• Making extra repayments to move into a lower risk class.

Important points of attention

Remortgaging only pays off when the benefit over the remaining term outweighs the costs. I calculate that concretely, including any early repayment penalty, so your decision is based on numbers rather than a hunch.

How Voorne Hypotheekadvies helps you

I request your current mortgage details, compare the options independently and show what each scenario means for your monthly payment and total costs. The entire process can be handled in English.