Lisa Fletcher - Mortgage Adviser

8 ways to make sure you're in your new home for New Year
With just weeks’ to go until Christmas, if you’d like to stand the best chance of being settled in a new home then now is the time to pull your socks up and follow these steps to help the house buying process move along as quickly as possible.
Review your finances
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6 THINGS TO CONSIDER BEFORE BUYING A RENOVATION PROPERTY.
Taking on a property that needs a lot of work doing to it can be a shrewd investment – as long as you weigh up the pros and cons first.
Are you ready to take on a renovation project? Although there are some bargain buys out there that could make you a tidy profit further down the line, renovation is not without risk, and it’s certainly a lot of work, from the planning and organisation to the actual knocking down and bu...
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Mortgage bankers Vs mortgage brokers: why use a mortgage broker?
Does giving up a day of your time to sit in an office or bank, answering questions and filling out paperwork sound like your idea of fun? No. Ours neither.
Most people assume that getting a mortgage means heading straight to your bank. But unfortunately, this can mean missing out on the right deal for your needs. It’s a bit like looking for car insurance - you want to take a look at what everyone has to offer fi...
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I do a lot of evening telephone appointments as that is what my clients want. Let me know if you want to review your existing mortgage or if you are looking to buy/move. As a broker I have access to over 90 lenders and total flexibility with times etc. Also as we do this day in day out we can make the process surprisingly smoother.
Editorial
Around half of brokers say clients would rather communicate by email, while a quarter think face-to-face meetings or phone calls are f...avoured.
Mortgage Solutions polled brokers on how clients best like to communicate, 46.7% said email, followed by face-to-face meeting at 24.8% and phone call at 23.8%. Only 2% voted for text or Whatsapp messages, whilst 1% opted for social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
Jonathan Clark, mortgage partner at Chadney Bulgin, said that despite the increasing influence of various social media platforms/apps, most clients prefer to set up a face-to-face meeting – especially the first time. He added: “For subsequent advice, the majority of them are then happy to liaise via email, which frees up more of my time and allows me to engage with more new clients.” Phone calls to save time.
However, James Drury, mortgage adviser at Capital Fortune, pointed out phone calls help to save time. He said: “We do not meet clients face-to-face and this saves time travelling. “As we are an international firm with just one office in London, we predominately set up phone calls to be followed up by emails. Clients like this. We try to avoid texts or Whatsapp messages.”
For further information call: 07854516929
Email: lisa.fletcher1@mab.org.uk
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
There will be a fee for mortgage advice. The actual amount you pay will depend upon your circumstances.
The fee is up to 1% but a typical fee is 0.3% of the amount borrowed.
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I do evening telephone appointments and am totally flexible, no trudging down to the high street to sit in an office at a pre-arranged time. I have access to over 90 lenders and 11,000 mortgage products. If you are thinking of buying/moving/reviewing your mortgage I am happy to help. Contact info @ bottom of this.
Why has my mortgage application been declined?
Having a mortgage application declined can be very frustrating to say the least as it can slow down the process of...
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The ins and outs of transferring a mortgage
Can I move the mortgage to a family member? Can I transfer my mortgage to my children? These are questions that are often asked when people think of transferring or moving their mortgage. For lenders, transferring a mortgage means to move your mortgage to a different property - also known as ‘porting a mortgage’. But you may also be thinking about transferring your mortgage to another person instead.
Why transfer your mortgage to an...
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Porting your mortgage: transferring explained
When thinking about moving home, one of the first things you may start to consider is your mortgage situation. You might start by looking into a new mortgage for the property you’re moving to. However, if you’d like to keep your current mortgage deal with you, you can – and this is referred to as transferring or porting a mortgage.
How does porting a mortgage work?
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What to consider when raising finance for flats
Kate Faulkner is one of the UK's leading property experts and in this article, she discusses what you need to consider when raising finance for flats.
There are a number of key differences between buying a leasehold property and one where you own the freehold. That’s mainly because there is a third interested party in the purchase – the freeholder – and the lease contains numerous terms and conditions that need to be investigate...
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Our dream home didn't need to cost the earth
Ian and Nicole Cornish live in Bude in Cornwall. Ian aged 53 is a self-employed painter and decorator and Nicole aged 45 is a pre-school manager.
Having previously rented, the couple were looking for a property to call their own and had looked at a few properties locally. They had a budget of around £110,000 and were happy to take on a fixer upper but hadn’t prepared themselves for what their dream home would require.
... Having looked in and around the Bude area for some time, they eventually found a 19th century terraced house, but it was by no means perfect. Nicole explains, “It was the first house we saw that we loved and we both fell for it straight away. However, it’s fair to say that the house was in need of a lot TLC in order to make it liveable never mind our dream home. There wasn’t even a kitchen when we first went to see it! But it didn’t matter and we knew it was the right place for us.
Once the house was finally ours and we’d got the keys, Ian and I embarked on what turned out to be a four year renovation project, which saw us knock down walls, install a kitchen, replace the bathroom, and basically just bring the house back to life. I think like most people taking on a project of this nature we underestimated how long it would take us and how much it would cost.
Over the last four years we’ve taken on additional borrowing in order to complete all the work. It’s taken a little longer than we initially hoped but we’re there now and we’ve got the house of our dreams as a result. It really is a house that I can see us living in into our retirement.
The competition of the work coincided with our mortgage deal coming up for renewal so we went to see an adviser at Mortgage Advice Bureau. We wanted to see if we could reduce our monthly payments as were paying around £570 on our mortgage repayments and another £400 per month on the home improvement loan.
Our adviser looked at all the options available and ended up finding us a two year fixed deal with the Halifax which reduced our overall payments by nearly £400 per month without increasing the term. We can’t believe how lucky we are that creating our dream home didn’t need to cost us the earth in the long run. It’s taken a lot of hard work to get here but we’re so pleased with what we’ve created.”
For further information call: 07854516929
Email: lisa.fletcher1@mab.org.uk
You may have to pay an early repayment charge to your existing lender if you remortgage.
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
There will be a fee for mortgage advice. The actual amount you pay will depend upon your circumstances.
The fee is up to 1% but a typical fee is 0.3% of the amount borrowed.
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Welsh Stamp Duty
From April 2018, people living in Wales will now pay different Stamp Duty from the rest of the UK.
Stamp Duty, as Wales formerly knew it, has now changed over to Land Transaction Tax, also known as LTT. Just as before, you’ll pay Stamp Duty when you either buy or lease a house over a certain price.
... How does it work?
You’ll only have to pay LTT if the house you’re buying is £180,000 or more. The amount of tax you’ll have to pay is worked out using a tier system, whereby the amount of tax you pay will depend on the price of the property.
Here are the different tiers of Land Transaction Tax you could be liable for:
Portion of the property price LLTRate
£0 - £180,000 0% £180,001 - £250,000 3.5% £250,001 - £400,000 5% £400,001 - £750,000 7.5% £750,001 - £1.5m 10% £1.5m+ 12%
For example, if you purchased a house at £400,000 you would pay £9,950 LTT, altogether. £2,450 of this is from the tax band £180k to £250k at 3.5%, and the remaining £7,500 will be from the band £250k to £400k at 5%.
Why has this change happened?
The Welsh government has stated that, “ Any changes have been made to either simplify the tax; make it fairer; improve its efficiency and effectiveness; or to enable a focus on Welsh needs and properties”.
Buy-to-let/second home properties
Those of you with second homes or buy-to-let properties will have to pay 3% more than the residential rates. Those properties over £400,000 are exempt from paying any tax.
First time buyers
Since November 2017, in the UK, first time buyers do not have to pay stamp duty on a property if it is less than £300,000. However, this is not the case now in Wales as there is no exemption to first time buyers under the new LTT legislation.
For further information on the costs you need to consider when buying a property, please get in touch with our helpful team of advisers. We can put you in touch with an adviser local to you who can offer flexible appointments. In the meantime, see how much you might be able to borrow with our handy borrowing calculator tool.
For further information call: 07854516929
Email: lisa.fletcher1@mab.org.uk
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
There will be a fee for mortgage advice. The actual amount you pay will depend upon your circumstances.
The fee is up to 1% but a typical fee is 0.3% of the amount borrowed.
See More

Are property prices crashing or calming?
Kate Faulkner is one of the UK's leading property experts and in this article, she discusses whether the property market is crashing or calming.
We know, in theory, bad news makes a much better headline than good news, and that’s certainly true for reports on the property market. Some in the media do love to shout about prices crashing and warn that the market’s in trouble, and it’s been particularly under the spotlight since the Brexi...
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Home improve or move?
Ben and Jenny Warren live in Horsforth in Leeds with their two children, Dylan aged six and Sophie aged two. They’ve lived in their 3-bedroomed semi-detached home since 2007. Having originally planned to stay there for just a few years, they recently had to choose between moving and improving.
Jenny 38 works as a project manager and Ben 40 is a multi-site general manager in the bar and restaurant industry. Although they are happy in their current home, t...hey knew if they were going to make the decision to stay put that there were some improvements they’d need to plan.
Jenny explains, “When we bought this house, we imagined that we’d only stay here for a few years, but life moves very quickly and 11 years and two kids later, we’re still here.
Having already remortgaged twice since moving in, we’ve done some work on the property including an extension, but there were still some outstanding ‘big jobs’ such as the fact that the windows needed replacing. So with our existing mortgage deal about to come to an end, we knew we needed to decide whether to take the opportunity to move, or to stay put but invest in making this house suitable for us and our children for the foreseeable future.
We looked around at the properties that were available and went to meet with our mortgage adviser to talk through the options. We found that in order to move up the ladder either in terms of area or property type we were going to have to make a big jump financially.
Ben and I decided that we wanted security and with Brexit on the horizon and our uncertainty about how that might impact on our finances, we thought it made sense to stay where we are and make some improvements to our home.
We talked to our mortgage adviser about increasing our borrowing to see whether we’d be able to do what we wanted. We’d previously been on quite a high fixed rate deal due to the fact that rates have come down so much since we took out the deal so we were really surprised to find that we could take out a five year fixed deal, with some additional borrowing and still keep our monthly repayments in line with our budget.
It was quite a relief to know that we have taken control of our budget for the next five years and have also been able to raise the capital we need for new windows, a new front door, a new porch and a few internal improvements. I really like the peace of mind knowing that this can be our family home for years to come."
For further information call: 07854516929
Email: lisa.fletcher1@mab.org.uk
You may have to pay an early repayment charge to your existing lender if you remortgage.
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
There will be a fee for mortgage advice. The actual amount you pay will depend upon your circumstances.
The fee is up to 1% but a typical fee is 0.3% of the amount borrowed.
See More

43% of homeowners are currently on a variable rate, which means you are probably overpaying. I can help. I have access to all of the best lenders and based on credit score should be able to get a free valuation & free legals as well as bagging a super low rate and protecting yourself from future rate rises. Please contact me and arrange a telephone appointment.
Rate rise reprieve gives UK homeowners the gift of time
Homeowners across the UK have yet again been granted a rat...
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Getting ready to remortgage
Timing is key when it comes to remortgaging, and it’s never too early to start thinking about it. Whether you’ve seen a great rate that you want to switch to in order to save money, or perhaps your fixed deal is coming to an end, we’ll be here to offer expert advice and guidance along the way until the moment you’re ready to remortgage.
How much do you owe on your current mortgage?
... You need to find out how much is left to pay on your current mortgage. If you’re unsure yourself, your mortgage adviser will be able to tell you the exact figure. Once you know the amount, you will know exactly how much you need to remortgage for and can work out what your repayments could be.
How soon can you remortgage?
The common question we get asked is: how soon can I remortgage? There is no set answer to this question. Technically, you can switch mortgage products any time you wish, however switching before your current deal has ended could mean you have to pay an early repayment charge.
Before you decide to remortgage, it’s important you find out if there is a charge on your mortgage, how much it would be and what date it applies until. This is something your mortgage adviser will be able to tell you, plus they can help advise whether it would be worth switching deals and paying the charge, or waiting until you’re out of the initial discount period of your mortgage.
Realistically, if you’re happy with your current mortgage and only need to remortgage because your offer period is coming to an end, then you’d probably want to start looking around six months before your end date.
Prepare your finances
There are a few things you can do to get your finances in good shape so you’re in a great position to remortgage:
Check your credit score Don’t apply for any new credit Avoid spending large amounts of money Don’t go into your overdraft anymore than you already are (if you are) Lenders want to see that you’re good with your finances and can still afford to repay them back each month, which is why the above points will go against your favour just before you remortgage.
Once you’ve finally completed your remortgage, you can tick it off your list, sit back and relax (until the next time comes!).
Understanding how remortgaging works will help prepare you for when the time comes. In the meantime, if you have any questions about your remortgage please don’t hesitate to get in touch, or if you’re looking for a trusted mortgage adviser, we can put you in touch with one local to you.
For further information call: 07854516929
Email: lisa.fletcher1@mab.org.uk
You may have to pay an early repayment charge to your existing lender if you remortgage.
Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage.
There will be a fee for mortgage advice. The actual amount you pay will depend upon your circumstances.
The fee is up to 1% but a typical fee is 0.3% of the amount borrowed.
See More

Excited to announce as well as 90 other lenders I now have access to M&S mortgages. Can't wait to do my 1st one, its not just any mortgage its an M&S mortgage!!
Super competitive rates and £1000 cashback for First Time Buyers with a free basic valuation.

Negotiating house prices: your key guide
Finding the right house can take weeks or months, but as soon as you find ‘the one’, you need to know the exact steps to follow to make sure you secure your dream house. One of these steps is knowing how to negotiate on price.
Before the viewings
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Feedback today (I don't usually do this but why not!!)
Completion date set for next week....
Thank you for all your help with everything (i.e. Chasing up things with mortgage and insurance) you have been fab! Because we spoke highly of you to family, they have asked who we went with for their future purchases!
... Thank you again
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Glossary of mortgage terms
When it comes to mortgages, it can often feel like everyone’s speaking another language. With our handy mortgage glossary, we cut through the jargon and explain all the ‘need to know’ words and phrases that you’re likely to hear when going through your mortgage application.
Agreement in Principle (AIP)...
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We received an outstanding service, wide options and a lot of advice. Having seen few advisers we decided to stay with Lisa. She was very informative and explained all in a precise and clear manner. The process was completed promptly and professionally.

We feel lucky to have stumbled across Lisa, and can not recommend her highly enough. Every step of the way, Lisa gave a personal service, tailored to our needs. She has been adaptable and creative in her thinking, and communication was always excellent. Lisa commands a very worthy and deserving 5 stars, and is someone we will always return to for financial advice. Thank you Lisa.

Very helpful and professional nothing was too much trouble . Handled all things with speed and efficiency highly recommend

Lisa have been brilliant throughout advising us what is best for our mortgage. Always keeping us informed on what is happening, and always the other end of the phone if we need to ring or text. Lisa has defiantly made finding a home so much easier than we thought it would ever be. Highly recommen this lovely lady :) xx

I've been recommending Lisa for a while now and customers are always giving great feedback.

I can highly recommend Lisa, she found me an amazing deal, everything ran smoothly and at times to suit me. Thanks Lis xx

Having worked with Lisa Fletcher in the past I know how thorough and passionate she is about helping people. Lisa's one of the most tenacious people I know and incredibly efficient. You'll be in great hands with Lisa, she won't let you down!